Regardless, if you are running Chrome 41+ or Firefox 36+, it is important to test your website’s speed on a routine basis. You can do this with speed testing tools that are available through a variety of websites. The test will provide you with analysis of your website’s load speed and some will even give you tips to make them faster. It is also a good idea to test your website from both mobile and desktop.
The test will help you identify “bottlenecks” that are caused by third-party scripts and bloat. If you website is underperforming, there is a good chance that visitors will not stick around very long to see what you have to offer.
Coding Your Website For Mobile-First Quality
Given the dominance of the mobile web it is pretty evident that more and more individuals are using their mobile devices to surf and browse the web. This is why it is imperative to make sure that website is coded for mobile first. However, this doesn’t mean that you should completely forget about desktop users altogether. The key is to code first for mobile users and then progressively enhance the desktops and laptops browsing experience.
Set Realistic Performance Goals
One of the first things you should do is set realistic performance goals for your website. Your strategy should include how “fast in seconds” you want your website to load and connection speed. It is also important to optimize for all of your slower and mobile devices.
Use Caution When Using Videos
Just about every website on the World Wide Web consists of some type of video. With this said, videos can slow down your website speed significantly. The main reason for this is because your visitor’s browser will be required to make more requests to render your page, this is especially true with YouTube videos. The number of requests for YouTube is four, including three for different resolutions and one for the still image utilized as a video cover.
When embedding videos into your content, utilize lightboxes. This will help avoid all those unnecessary server requests. The end result, a faster website.
Image Optimization
An individual took a poll recently online asking 20 plus web developers about common mistakes that are made during web development. Would you believe what the number one response was? 46% of these experts said that image optimization was the biggest mistake that most developers were making these days. What this basically means is that images are either not showing up on websites or they are completely doubling load times due to improper compression.
The Optimus WordPress plugin can change all of this if you are using WordPress because it focuses on a combination of both lossless and lossy image compressions. Not only can this plugin be utilized with any platform, but also it can go a long way to increase your load times as well. Another huge advantage of this plugin is that it supports the WebP format that was developed by Google.
Another excellent tip is to minimize the amount of flashy images that you are using. Sure, these images are catchy and have cool effects, but they slow your website down greatly. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to throw a few in here and there, but just do not go overboard with them.
