Website speed is becoming a major issue as speed has an increasing effect on search engine optimisation. Google is now actively penalising slow sites in their rankings. Visitors are expecting fast responses. If your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, unless you are Amazon or the BBC, visitors may just give up and go somewhere else.
So who is to blame? Here is my pick of the most likely culprits.
Cheap shared hosting
There are many cheap hosting solutions out there based on ‘selling it cheap and getting as many accounts on one web server as they can manage’. It only takes one site to get a mention on dig or a link on the BBC site and the extra traffic for that website can mean all websites on that web server suffer.
Solutions
- You get what you pay for, so be cautious about going for the cheapest solution
- Make your site as efficient as possible to enable it to cope with a shared environment
- Look into a Virtual Private server if your traffic increases
Third party plugins and widgets
I have nothing against open source software as a whole. I regularly use WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and ecommerce solutions such as OpenCart or Magento. What I am suspicious of is the numerous third party scripts and plugins that can be downloaded to give you those magical extra functions.
Every extra plugin or widget has its own JavaScript and CSS files to load. Some of these scripts are not even hosted on your server which can add even more lag time to your website.
Solutions
- Get it installed professionally
- Keep the install as minimal as possible
- Research all plugins and widgets
- Monitor your site carefully after each new plugin.
Using tools like GTMetrix (http://gtmetrix.com) you can find out what specific part of your site is causing you problems.
Un-optimised images
While things are improving I still find that the enthusiastic amateur designer often struggles to optimise their own images. Many open souce packages will now resize your images but they do it with a varying level of quality. Try to optimise your images before you upload them into your website. If you are not a Photoshop expert try online tools such as Yahoo’s Smushit (http://www.smushit.com/ysmush.it/) to get back those extra bytes from lossless compression. Remember images should not be used instead of typography. Learn some css and keep your text as text.
Solutions
- Resize your image before uploading
- Optimise images using lossless compression techniques
- Dust off your CSS (http://www.w3schools.com/css/) and use text rather than images for typography.
Slow broadband
Sometimes it is your connection and not the whole of the internet that is causing the problem. If you share your internet connection it’s always worth checking that someone in another room is not using all your bandwidth with online gaming or downloading the latest blockbuster from ITunes. Business networks are often slower at lunchtime when everyone is using their lunch break to check their bank balance or play the latest YouTube video of a cat yawning. Aww cute.
Less is more
Do you really need all those extra widgets. Consider using static links to Facebook and Twitter. Dynamic follow and like buttons often include extra javacript and tracking code that could also have privacy or security concerns for your visitors.
Balance your frontpage. Does all your multimedia content need to be on your front page.
In conclusion my top five tips for a faster website are:
- Keep it tight and as minimal as your requirements allow
- Use only well researched and recommended third party plugins and scripts
- Don’t use the cheapest web hosting and consider a virtual private server or even a dedicated server when your traffic gets high enough
- Always uninstall unused scripts
- Monitor your website after each change
