6 Ways A Professional Web Developer Can Improve Your Website Performance
Researchers found out that about 50% of the web users expect a website to load in at least two seconds or less. This statistic means that if a website loads in more than two seconds, it is very likely to lose prospective customers. Not to mention that delivering a consistent client experience on your website is a significant approach to support your page’s conversion rate. The rate at which web pages are displayed on a browser defines website performance. Therefore, to avoid losing valuable clients, here are six of the best web practices a web developer can do to improve its performance.
Performance is one of the cornerstones of web development. More so, developing a responsive and fast website requires expert skills. By developing excellent websites and defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Professional web developers ensure high performance of sites in the following ways.
1. Reducing HTTP Requests
HTTP requests are the number of ‘trips’ a web browser makes to a server to retrieve and display information requested. Files increase HTTP requests depending on their number and size. This is what defines the time taken by a website to load data. These files include JavaScript code, CSS, or images. These requests can be reduced by:
- Image spriting. This essentially means creating a 2-D image with relatively smaller size and resolution, done by displaying the required portion of an image relative to the background positioning.
- Merging files reduces HTTP requests for files since they will be retrieved as one rather than separately.
- Moreover, the size of files on the site, and embeds can also play a part in lowering HTTP requests, henceforth, the resolution of videos and images needs to be standardized.
- Avoiding JavaScript. Again reducing the number of website load will reduce retrieval time significantly, thereby increasing website performance.
2. Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Earlier on, most companies and individuals had their content hosted on servers which would create a copy of its content and render to a user depending on their geological location. This would mean that accessing a website from different parts of the world varied in terms of time taken to load website content. However, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) solved this menace. CDNs are a collection of web hosting servers spread across the globe. These CDNs ensure a smooth transition of content across the web by use of intelligent applications. This, in effect, produces a tightly integrated overlay which ensures caching, request routing, and server-load balancing to provide a website user with a better experience. As a result, professional web developers utilize this technology to ensure boosted speed of website performance.
3. Adding Gzip Algorithm To Websites
Since HTTP requests depend on the size of files on a website and also every file requires a separate trip, compressing them is an essential way to boost website performance. Web developers use Gzip compression algorithms to effect this trick in two ways; dynamically and statically. Dynamically whereby gzip compresses data when the user requests it, and statically data is compressed in advance. Gzip is a quick approach to enhance website performance, which delivers a high-quality experience to your users. Compressed files, whether image files or other files, allows websites to access information faster since the compression streamlines the back-end techniques when a website is first accessed.
4. Building Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs)
AMPs enable web developers to create web pages for static content that load fast on mobile, thereby increasing user engagement with the website. AMPs are coded with lesser information in HTML programming that is very basic, thus reducing loading time. These versions of webpages come in handy since phone usage in the rise worldwide. In fact, in India, which is the second most populated country in the world, it was reported that the number of smartphone users in the country would reach 490.9 million by the year 2022.
5. Minimize URL Redirects
Redirects act additional HTTP requests to a browser where a web page is made available under more than one URL – Uniform Resource Locator. Web developers can minimize redirects on the website by either of the following ways:
- Modifying the URLs by removing the query string at the of static resources. Querry strings disable caching of files like CSS and JavaScript, and this might increase redirects and eventually increasing website load time.
- Similarly, redirects can be reduced by removing the option from the domain and hosting panel.
- Alternatively, adding .htaccess files for the same to ensure control of caching by web browsers which eventually speed up websites.
6. Creating Minified Website Codes
Minification is a programming vocabulary that means eliminating unnecessary lines of code from website files. This will have the effect of reducing HTTP requests since file size will be diminished, thus decreasing the amount of time required for data to render to a user. The good thing is that removing these lines of code, like tabs and spaces, do not change the functionality of the files. Most developers and teams of developers know that minifying code is a useful hack that ensures highly responsive websites.
Conclusion
The fact that most businesses are currently transacting online calls for better online experience for customers since competition is on the rise. The disadvantage of online marketing is that the convincing power of sellers to buyers is limited due to the reduced communication and interaction. This means that optimizing online presence by companies is very essential for success. With that in mind, having websites that respond quickly to visitors puts businesses at a better place to convert them into customers. Therefore, hiring professional web developers to code websites with these attributes is a big step towards that.
