What is website speed optimization?

Every weekend, we post an article that our team members researches. Previously, we have discussed the Google Search Console. In this post, we will discuss website speed optimization that plays a vital role in SEO ranking.

Let’s dive into it…

Website speed is one of the factors by which Google considers the website ranking.

Since 2017, Google SERPs also started ranking websites on the page’s mobile version and the desktop searches. That is the opposite of how the index used to work. (The aim of this is to protect users from low-performing websites.)

Nowadays, the website pages are indexed and ranked based on the experience they provide mobile users.

Conversion:

Conversion means getting the visitors to do what we want them to do. For example, the visitor can easily buy your product if you have an e-commerce website, subscribe to your newsletter, register for a seminar, webinar, etc.

The higher the performance of the website, the higher the conversion will be.

For example, according to the research, a 1-second loading delay of your website can cost you a 7% reduction in the conversation. On that basis, a 1-second delay for AMAZON can cost it $ 1.6 billion in sales each year, which we can easily say is vast. It goes without saying.

Visibility:

The load time of your website influences how easily users can find your website. A low-performing website gives a poor user experience and, as a result, gains less promotion in search results.

Usability:

Usability like page speed, load time, responsiveness to users’ requests directly impacts users’ loyalty. User satisfaction is what matters. A great user experience builds a large customer base and a strong brand.

• CDN
  CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. Usually, when we host a website on a single server, all user requests are sent to the same hardware, which increases the time to process each request. The load increases on the hardware. But with CDN, user requests are redirected to the nearest server, resulting in the quick delivery of the content to a user. Hence, the website speed works faster.

• Hosting
  There are three possible ways of hosting: Shared, Dedicated, and Virtual private servers. Because on Shared hosting, we share the same CPU, disk space, and RAM, which results in low loading speed of your website. With VPS, you are using multiple servers for content distribution. With VPS, you are sharing the server with the other users. You have your part of the virtual server where your configuration doesn’t influence others clients.
  A dedicated server is like having your server. That is costly.

• Image Optimization
  Large images slow down the website, so it is necessary to optimize the image. Some of the tools are IMAGEOPTIM, JPEGmini, KRAKEN.Another way is to use HTML’s
  “srcset”, “size”, and “media” attributes.The “srcset,” “sizes,” and “media” attribute offers the and elements to be enlarged by providing the additional browser information, such as different image sources as well as different display sizes and media conditions.

• Plugins
  When Plugins are installed, we need more resources to run, resulting in slower websites and sometimes security issues. We can also find which plugin slows down our website by running performance tests for the particular website. Website speed depends on the quantity of the plugins and the quality of the plugins. Avoid plugins that generate a lot of script, style, and database.

• CSS and JS files
  When a website has many CSS and JS files, it generates many HTTPS requests when the website visitors want to access a particular file.These requests are treated individually.Reduce the number of CSS and JS files and try to group all JS and CSS into one. That will reduce the total number of HTTPS requests.There are several tools to minify the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files quickly. WillPeavy, Script Minifier, or Grunt tools are some of them.[As a general rule, avoid adding the CSS in HTML code (like in divs or headings) like in the inline CSS pictured above. You will get the cleaner code if you put all of the CSS in an external stylesheet.]
  [Put the CSS at the top and JS at the bottom]

• Website Caching
  When several visitors are on your website, servers work very slow and take more time to deliver the webpage to each user. Caching means storing your website’s current version on the hosting server and presenting this version until your website is updated (loaded). That means the web page does not refer again and again to every user. Cached web pages don’t need to send database requests each time.
  (The first time viewers come to your website, they have to download the stylesheets, javascript files, HTML document, and images before using the page. That may be as more than 30 components and 2.4 seconds. Once the website page has been loaded and the different components stored in the user’s cache, only a few features need to be downloaded for subsequent visits.)

• Gzip Compression
  Gzip Compression is an efficient way to diminish the size of files. It decreases the HTTP requests and reduces the server response time. It works on the server-side. Gzip compresses the files before transferring them to the browser. On the viewer side, a browser presents the contents and unzips the files. This process will work with all the files on a website. You can allow Gzip on the website by adding some code lines or via a utility called gzip.

• Database Optimization
  Database optimization is an efficient process to increase performance. If you use a CMS (Content Management system) packed with complex plugins. In that case, the database size increases, and your website works slower. For example, the WordPress CMS stores comments, blog posts, and other information that take up a lot of data storage. Each CMS requires its optimization measures and also has several specific plugins.

• Web Fonts
  Web fonts add extra HTTP requests to external resources, which makes our website slower.Detect 404 error
  Reduce RedirectsWebsite redirects create additional HTTP requests that negatively impact performance. First, you should identify all redirects on your page by running a site scan. Then you have to check if they serve a necessary purpose and leave only the critical ones.

• Web Fonts
  Web fonts add extra HTTP requests to external resources, which makes our website slower.
  • Detect 404 error
  • Reduce Redirects

  Website redirects create additional HTTP requests that negatively impact performance. First, you should identify all redirects on your page by running a site scan. Then you have to check if they serve a necessary purpose and leave only the critical ones.

• Use the external hosting platforms
  In addition to hosting the site’s files on a CDN, you can also use external hosting platforms for your larger files. For example, we can say that you want to add a video tutorial to your site. You edit, create, and export the video file. Your first thought may be to upload the video directly to the site via your FTP or WordPress editor. Don’t do this. When you host the videos on your server, they take up a lot of space. Video files can easily take up over 100MB.Rather than host your video on a third-party service like YouTube. Then, insert the video on the site. This process saves the results in faster load times, space and is straightforward to do.

• Prioritize above-the-fold content (lazy loading)
  Having just recommended that you use only no inline CSS and one CSS stylesheet, there is one sign you have to consider. You can improve the user experience by having the above-the-fold (top of the page) section load faster, even if the other page takes a few seconds to load. That is called lazy loading and is particularly helpful for pages with lots of content below the fold.

• Time to first byte ( TTFB)
  Additionally, the amount of time it takes for your page to load fully, also you will want to look at the total time it takes to start loading.
  TTFB (Time to first byte) is the total time a browser has to wait before getting its first byte of data from the server. Google suggests a TTFB of less than 200 ms. Unlike many of the front-end performance factors most site owners focus on, this is a server-side concern. (we can see it in inspect-Network-waterfall)
  When a user visits the site, their browser sends an HTTP request to the server that hosts it.Three steps need to happen between that initial request and the first byte of data:
  • DNS lookup
  • Server processing
  • Response

  Most slow TTFB is caused by network issues, web server configuration, dynamic content creation, and traffic. Of these four factors, you need to control over two: Server configuration and dynamic content creation.

• Minimize HTTP request
  Now that we know how many requests our site makes, we can reduce that number by minifying HTML, CSS, and JS files. Primarily that is essential if you use a templated website builder. These make it easy to make a website, but sometimes they create messy code that can slow your site considerably. Once you have minified and combined some of your files, you can also optimize how they load on your pages.Can load Scripts like CSS and JavaScript in two different ways: Synchronously or Asynchronously.If the scripts load synchronously, they load one at a time in the order they appear on the page. If the scripts load asynchronously, on the other hand, some of them will load simultaneously.

  Loading files asynchronously can speed up the pages because when a browser loads a page, it moves from top to bottom.

  If it gets to a JavaScript or CSS file, that is not asynchronous. In that case, it will stop loading until it has fully loaded that particular file. If that same file were asynchronous, the browser would continue loading other elements on the page together.

  Deferring a file means preventing it from loading until after other elements have loaded. If you wait for larger files, like JavaScript, you ensure that the rest of your content can load without delay.

We hope this post helps you; if you liked this post, you could comment and like this post.

Also Read: Google Search Console: Dashboard Explanation In Detail