Tips to Optimize Application Performance

Site slow? Need it to load faster? … Read on.
The page load and the application access speed determine the quality of the application for user experience. Of course, internet speed is sometimes an issue here, but it can be avoided using simple application optimization techniques. There are many ways to Optimize Application Performance.

1. Image Compression (Without Quality Loss).

In an application, images are a must to attract users. Images play an important role in advertising products on good e-commerce sites; different angles are taken for the product to showcase its type, work, and know-how. The only negative side of this is that they are usually large files that slow down a website.

The best solution to reduce the image size without compromising its quality is to compress images in different image manipulation applications, e.g., Paint.net, etc. Images can be compressed or adjusted in different ways, like using the HTML attributes to adjust the image size based on user display properties. Image sprites can also be used to reduce the download of images on the client-side.

2. Limit the Use of Third-Party Plugins.

Plugins are commonly used in the application. But, the more plugins are used, the more resources are used by them. As a result, it slows down the application and can cause security loopholes too.

As time passes, the number of plugins grows, while some of them may not be used anymore. Hence, it is recommended to check out all the plugins you have used and delete unnecessary ones. You can use the online performance tests on your page to find out which plugins are slowing down your application. They should avoid plugins that load a lot of scripts and styles or generate a lot of database queries or HTTP requests. The best solution is to keep only the necessary ones and ensure that they are kept up-to-date.

Also Read: Site Performance Optimization

3. Reduce the Size of JavaScript and CSS Files.

A website contains a lot of JavaScript and CSS files, which leads to a large number of HTTP requests. These requests slow down the website based on the visitor’s internet speed, which in turn causes an inconvenience for the user experience.

If the JavaScript and CSS files are compressed and sent, that will undoubtedly speed up your website. Compress all JavaScript into one and also do so with all CSS files. This will reduce the overall number of HTTP requests. There are a lot of tools to minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files quickly.

4. Avoid Too Many Redirects.

Too many redirects cause a problem for the user experience; they create additional HTTP requests which negatively impact performance. Redirects should be kept to a minimum or removed entirely at critical points. If you cannot identify the redirects done on your websites, then you can use the online site scan to check the number of redirects done.

5. Database Access.

Restricting database access is an effective way to increase performance. Instead of doing multiple calls for data fetching at different operations for one-page access, it is indeed time-consuming.

The best option is to load all the data beforehand at the time of page load and reduce the calls made to the database in between. This will reduce the load of database access. Another way is to create proper indexes on tables and proper database structures to store data in a better and more efficient way. This will help you to store more data with less storage.

Stevan Fernandes

Blog written on: 06-09-2019