How to Speed Up Your Website Using These Developer Tips?
Back in the 90s and early 2000s when dialup connections prevailed the loading speed of your website determined if your business would sink or swim. Today, with broadband internet connecting a fair number of internet users, speed is not much of an issue, or so you may think. Many internet users still access the internet from slow speed mobile and internet connections. That said, Google recently declared that they would favor websites that are swift to load which is all the more reason to invest in making your website leaner.
Start with your database
All dynamic websites are mainly driven by a database. This database supplies the website with updated information as well as stores information entered into it via the site's page. If your website's database is slow your users will obviously experience a lag in the site loading. The easiest thing you can do prior to hiring a web developer to speed up your database is to get in contact with your hosting company to find out how many databases are being hosted on a server, plus find out what redundancy and disaster procedures they may have. You should also turn on database caching which will also help to speed up performance.
Improve your coding
Many times it is bad coding that bogs down a website. If you are using HTML or PHP makes sure that the coding is as lean as possible. Also, some programming technologies like CSS and HTML 5 help to stream line your coding and improve loading speeds.
Design in CSS
CSS can result in very clean HTML in addition to very small sized pages, around 50% of file size compared to just using HTML. The prime reason why CSS is so comparatively lean is because creating tables in HTML is heavy. Try using CSS shorthand where ever possible. Properties in CSS can be used to create nested styles.
Remove redundant code
This may sound trivial but redundant code does slow down a website significantly. You should delete all redundant JavaScript and CSS code. This should help to make the files smaller.
Move both JavaScript and CSS into extra files
If you move JavaScript and CSS code into separate external files this will allow your page to load quicker because all the browser needs to load is HTML. The JavaScript and CSS are usually loaded just once into the user's cache after which they are used multiple times which speeds up access.
Remove white spaces
Removing white spaces from your code can make a huge difference. This is especially the case with white spaces in between tags which helps to shrink your source files quite a bit. Your code may not look very easy to understand or pretty but it will have a positive effect on your page's ability to load faster. You can also use compression programs to further compress all the files prior to uploading them to your hosting provider's server.
Conclusion
Many of the tips above do not require that you be a qualified website developer to implement. However, having some development knowledge or basic knowledge of HTML and CSS can help you a great deal.
Start with your database
All dynamic websites are mainly driven by a database. This database supplies the website with updated information as well as stores information entered into it via the site's page. If your website's database is slow your users will obviously experience a lag in the site loading. The easiest thing you can do prior to hiring a web developer to speed up your database is to get in contact with your hosting company to find out how many databases are being hosted on a server, plus find out what redundancy and disaster procedures they may have. You should also turn on database caching which will also help to speed up performance.
Improve your coding
Many times it is bad coding that bogs down a website. If you are using HTML or PHP makes sure that the coding is as lean as possible. Also, some programming technologies like CSS and HTML 5 help to stream line your coding and improve loading speeds.
Design in CSS
CSS can result in very clean HTML in addition to very small sized pages, around 50% of file size compared to just using HTML. The prime reason why CSS is so comparatively lean is because creating tables in HTML is heavy. Try using CSS shorthand where ever possible. Properties in CSS can be used to create nested styles.
Remove redundant code
This may sound trivial but redundant code does slow down a website significantly. You should delete all redundant JavaScript and CSS code. This should help to make the files smaller.
Move both JavaScript and CSS into extra files
If you move JavaScript and CSS code into separate external files this will allow your page to load quicker because all the browser needs to load is HTML. The JavaScript and CSS are usually loaded just once into the user's cache after which they are used multiple times which speeds up access.
Remove white spaces
Removing white spaces from your code can make a huge difference. This is especially the case with white spaces in between tags which helps to shrink your source files quite a bit. Your code may not look very easy to understand or pretty but it will have a positive effect on your page's ability to load faster. You can also use compression programs to further compress all the files prior to uploading them to your hosting provider's server.
Conclusion
Many of the tips above do not require that you be a qualified website developer to implement. However, having some development knowledge or basic knowledge of HTML and CSS can help you a great deal.
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