Site Performance Optimization

As we all know, websites are a very important part of any business as they either create a good or bad impression of the products and services offered by a company. Keeping this point in mind, a site should always be user friendly and easy to use and understand. Site performance optimization is a key part in improving the overall performance on your website.

The website needs to be optimized for all kinds of devices and website traffic. When developing a website, we tend to focus more on the design and content aspect and forget the most critical element, i.e. the site performance optimization. Site speed is the most important and critical feature of a successful website and it should be something that has to have the highest priority.

Some of the benefits of a higher site performance are better user engagement, increased visitor retention, etc. It also leads to higher conversion and user satisfaction.

Let us look at some techniques which can help us in site performance optimization :

1. Reduce the HTTP requests
If your web pages have more HTTP requests, it will take longer to load. To prevent this from happening, we can combine the resources together. For example, if we have multiple CSS files getting included on each page, we can combine the files to make just a single CSS file that can be included wherever required. The same can be done in case of JavaScript files too.

2. Using minified code files
Minifying the code files removes any comments or extra spaces present in the files. This helps the server to interpret the code in a faster and a better way. It is always a good practice to use minified css, js files, etc. There are various online tools available which can be used for minifying files.

3. Caching the website
Web caching helps in reducing the server load as well as the network usage. Many web caching softwares are available which can be used to accomplish the same.

4. Optimizing the database
This is the most important aspect of site performance optimization. By taking care of this at the very beginning of the project, site performance optimization can be handled. As the data in the database increases, the site tends to become slower. So the efficiency with which the data is retrieved from the database has a huge impact on the site performance.
To achieve database optimization, one method is to write optimized queries so the data is retrieved faster and in an efficient manner without putting much load on the server. Indexing is another technique which can be used to achieve database optimization.

The above were a few techniques which can help in site performance optimization. Apart from these techniques, there are many site optimizing tools which are available which help in an overall analysis of the site. GTMetrix, Pagelocity, SeoSiteCheckup,.. to name a few. Using such tools, we can get a clearer idea of which elements are affecting site performance.

To conclude, I would say that site performance optimization is not the task which you can take up only after the site development is completed but it is an on-going process which is required.

Prachi Sinai Kavlekar