To optimize the loading speed is the key to increase traffic and conversions, but getting load times effective depends on many factors.
Users expect web sites and online applications will load quickly and respond in a hurry to user actions. A web site is slow could cause dissatisfaction in the user and losses of income for your company.
1. Minimize the amount of files to optimize the loading speed
The count of files from a web site can have a direct relationship to optimize the loading speed of a website. A large number of files can slow down load times, since every visitor should download them individually, so it takes more time than the massive release. The static elements, such as images and CSS files, typically constitute the largest part of the total weight of the file; the use of compression techniques in these files can significantly reduce its size without affecting the visual quality.
When someone visits your website, their browser sends HTTP requests to your server asking for information about a particular web page. Then, your server complies with that request, delivering files HTML, CSS and JavaScript for that page, directly to your browser (each HTTP request uses bandwidth); the fewer HTTP requests are made, the faster it will load your web site for visitors.
The common practice involves embedding CSS files, and JavaScript directly into an HTML document, but this should be avoided because it will make them bigger, will prevent the caching of the browser to take effect and will require travel to and additional to the server by request. A better option would be to use separate files for these components, which will minimize the amount of files that need to be transferred through HTTP and, therefore, be achieved by optimizing the loading speed of the web sites.
The content delivery networks (CDN) can help to optimize the loading speed and optimization of files stored in cache static files for the visitors located in key geographic regions, thus reducing loading times and improving performance for the visitors to remote. Cache providers, such as CDN, offer one of the most efficient ways to speed up load times, and at the same time significantly reduce the load times of overall traffic.
2. Minimize JavaScript and CSS
The CSS and JavaScript files can often be the source of bottlenecks in the performance of the site, however, optimize the speed of loading the site involves minimizing the JS and CSS files. To minimize these files, reducing their size by eliminating whitespace, special characters, lines of comments, line breaks and any unnecessary code, which makes the files smaller and faster to process, thus speeding up the loading time of the page.
The web sites that contain large amounts of CSS require additional attention because the analysis may take a considerable amount of time and when they are external CSS files, it stops the HTML parsing for download; this delay could take up to 3 seconds before the visitors see your content.
Both JS as CSS can be minimized by shortening symbols without altering its functionality or usability for the user. A plugin such as WP Rocket provides this service, optimizing the delivery of CSS and postponing the execution of JS scripts.
The minification is essential to accelerate the web pages, reducing the size of the files and pass the audits of PageSpeed Insights. Doing this will give visitors an experience of more fluid navigation, and will ensure higher rankings for your site in the search engines.
While it is impossible to optimize the loading speed by 100%, even small improvements in the speed of loading can significantly improve user satisfaction and increase conversions, which means more traffic and business for you.
The web sites that manage to optimize the loading speed may also increase the length of stay of the visitors, which contributes to a higher ranking in the search engines, helping you to be the number 1 in a panorama of search that is constantly changing; this is one of the reasons for the optimization of your code should be part of any plan design and development of web sites.
3. Optimize the logic of the application server
The logic of the application can have an adverse impact on the performance of a website, especially if you use multiple databases. Each call to the database generates a network latency and round-trip that requires a long time to be processed. To optimize the application logic of your server, you can help reduce these problems.
The prioritization of applications is an essential factor to take into account, as it allows servers to indicate how they should prioritize the responses of certain services over others, for example, to send images before CSS and JavaScript files. If the servers do not respect this information request priority could result in unnecessary delays in the processing for customers; as when the transmissions are delivered sequentially in place of intertwined, which potentially blocks the capabilities of browser rendering.
An effective strategy to increase the performance of the server is the storage in the cache. Caching reduces the time spent to recover files from drives, retrieve records from databases and run application code; The caching has the ability to reduce the loading time of the page in up to 50%!
The optimizations that should be considered include tuning parameters such as the maximum concurrent connections that are allowed and the use of caching relations anxious for EJB to reduce database calls are made to the load beans related transactions.
One way to improve the performance of your web site is through content delivery networks (CDN). The CDN delivered cached versions of web sites directly to visitors located near them in nearby servers, speeding up the loading time of the pages for those who travel from distant areas.
4. Optimize the way your server to query the database
To optimize the loading speed of the web site is a fundamental element of any website successful. A web site is slow it can have serious adverse impact on everything from the user experience, the ranking in the search engines and the sales revenue, but don't despair: there are ways to speed up your site without spending a lot of money!
The optimization of how your server to query the databases is one of the best ways to increase the performance of the website. The databases are the backbone of all applications and a poor performance of the databases can have devastating effects on all of them. To optimize effective use of their database, it is essential that you understand how the process of consultation to be able to optimize it properly.
Sending queries using SQL allows you to translate into internal representations of the system call execution plans, and re-translate them to a high-level language called SQL for processing. The different execution plans generated various costs when they are processed; these costs are measured in disk accesses and CPU time required to process your query.
An effective way to reduce costs is by using the index search and filtering out the rows that do not match so that they are not read from the table, while, on the other hand, first read the rows of the table and apply filters is much more expensive; therefore, it is crucial that we identify which queries are the most expensive and why.
One of the main reasons why web sites and applications slow is the excess of queries in a single row. To split the query into smaller parts that affect only a limited number of rows at the same time, the performance can increase significantly. Another effective strategy to reduce the overhead of the database is to normalize the data by deleting columns redundant or irrelevant to the tables of the database.
5. Optimize the design of your website to optimize the loading speed
To optimize the loading speed of a web page involves components of both front-end and back-end of a web site. While the optimization of back-end involves database queries and dependencies of applications, the optimization of front-end involves elements of a site is client-oriented, as the image optimization to reduce load times, JavaScript files, CSS files, widgets, and other external resources that affect the load time of the page.
It's an effective strategy to optimize the loading speed of the page is by simplifying the design! The websites slow can discourage a lot to the visitors. To increase traffic and conversions, your web site must comply with the expectations of the user, if it hopes to grow. Studies indicate that users tend to abandon the site if it takes more than two seconds to load.
The websites designed taking into account the performance of front-end and back-end, tend to be loaded quickly, offer excellent user experiences, and work without problems on all devices, not to mention they are more likely to get a high score in the results from search engines, resulting in more organic traffic.
The standards of performance of web sites can have a devastating effect on the retention of customers and business, which leads shopping carts abandoned, higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates, therefore, it is vital that you take advantage of all the opportunities to optimize the performance of the web site (there are numerous methods to speed up the web sites without having to spend a lot of money or sacrificing features or essential features for users).
By employing these strategies, you can be assured that you will accomplish to optimize the loading speed of their website, making the site fast, efficient, and ready for the mobile devices of tomorrow.
