Information can be found in many places, but nowhere as practically and quickly as on the internet. Speed is one of the main characteristics of this service, and with countless options for sources, websites aiming to attract and retain users must offer quality content and run perfectly. After all, in the age of immediacy, no one will wait for a page to load for more than 5 seconds.
To help you, we have separated 10 tips that will make your website faster:
Remove unnecessary bytes
Reduce the size of your code by eliminating whitespace, indentation, and line breaks. You can do this manually or use specific programs available online, such as YUI Compressor for CSS, or Closure Compiler and JSMin, which compress JavaScript code.
External CSS
Styles coded within the pages make the site disorganized because they are downloaded every time someone accesses them, while an external CSS file is downloaded only once on the visitor's desktop.
Images
Large images take time to load, as does a large volume of images. If they are absolutely necessary, choose the smallest possible or opt to compress them to an accessible size without losing quality. This can be done in Photoshop or with some tools available on the web that allow this type of optimization.
Another tip is to specify the height and width dimensions of the images in the HTML, so the browser can read them more quickly.
Sprite
CSS has a feature that allows you to compile multiple images from a website into one and then manage it with code, which significantly reduces the number of requests to the server.
On-demand loading
Another technique that can be used is on-demand image loading, which loads images according to the page scroll. This way, only part of the content is visible, and since the loading is fragmented, it is faster.
Tables
HTML tables confuse the browser, making page loading difficult. Prefer CSS layouts that work better and do not interfere with speed.
Cut secondary resources
Of course, you want your website to be as complete as possible, but it won't do any good if the user gets tired before seeing all the options it offers. Secondary resources such as bulletin boards, weather forecasts, tabs, and chats should be cut unless they are essential to your proposal, or divide pages with excessive content.
Media
Prefer elements that only run when play is activated, such as videos. Animations and alternative media in Flash or QuickTime, which load automatically with the page, may not be that relevant and can become an unnecessary burden.
Links
Having links to the company's social media profiles on the website is a great resource to increase engagement, but links to third-party sites, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, for example, can slow down the page if the reference to them is at the beginning of the page code. Do not eliminate the links, just reposition them to the end, so you won't risk the rest of the page elements getting stuck in line before they are loaded.
CloudFlare
The CloudFlare is a content delivery network that has a system for distributing pages through various servers around the world. It has an optimizer for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, which compresses and reduces website files, optimizing the final version for users.
To use the service, simply register on the platform and configure the domain.