Every website owner would prefer to think that his or her
site is the best but there will be numerous other optimization processes that
will enhance the website. There are three different areas that one must focus
one’s attention in order to enhance one’s website. They include front end
performance, hardware and server side scripting optimization. Keeping aside all
the other applications, this article shall focus solely on Front end performance
that is one of the easiest ways of enhancing one’s website.
REDUCTION OF THE
AMOUNT OF HTTP REQUESTS
If one requires a faster speed, then the first step is to
cut down on the amount of contents on the pages that might include Flash,
images, stylesheets and scripts. If one gives a careful look at one’s website,
one would definitely discover innumerable stuffs that one could remove. Removing
unnecessary contents will reduce the amount of HTTP requests, thereby leading
to the increment in speed.
CONTENT DELIVERY
NETWORK—USE IT ALL THE TIME
CDN aids in the deliverance of content to end users. It
consists of a number of computers or servers with the help of which one can
increase one’s scalability, performance and it also decreases one’s costs. Since
this system implies using multiple servers, it entails increase of speed,
giving satisfaction to the users. Since majority of the user’s time is spent is
page download operations, using multiple users
helps in quickening the
procedure.
USE OF EXPIRES HEADER
OR A CACHE CONTROL HEADER
One must use either an “Expires” header or a “Cache control”header
depending upon the static or dynamic components. With the enrichment of the WebPages,
for example with the usage of applications like Flash and Graphics, makes a
first time visitor make numerous HTTP requests .With the use of Expires header,
one can make the mentioned features cacheable .This results in the redundancy
of HTTP requests on the following page views. With the use of cache, browsers
as well as proxies can be loaded with a faster speed on the web page.
USAGE OF GZIP THAT
CAN HELP INCREASING THE SPEED
There is much that one can do to control the end user’s
bandwidth speed but there are certain variables that one can modify in order to
increase the response time. Gzip-ing or compression aids in reducing the size
of the HTTP files with about 70%.Majority of the traffic on the internet does
travel through browsers that claim to support Gzip. There have some complain
with bugs in Gzip and older browsers but now they have been discarded without
any further complications.
PUTTING STYLESHEETS
AT THE TOP OF THE WEB PAGE
In order to overcome two frequently observed problems such
as Flash of unstyled content and blank screen page, one can place Stylesheets
at the head of the page. Now, putting Stylesheets makes
the page appear to be loading at a quicker pace than it is actually doing This
is generally used when one’s page on the site is clogged with excessive content
and the visitors have problems viewing it due to slow internet connectivity
.
PLACING OF SCRIPTS AT
THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
Placement of scripts at the bottom of the page also leads to
the avoidance of blank page and delayed downloading problems. Parallel
downloads often leads to blocking of the scripts. If it gets difficult to add
scripts at the bottom of the page, one must make use of deferred scripts in
order to arrive at a solution.
SAVING OF IMAGES IN
THE APPROPRIATE FORMAT
Certain sites might be crammed with images, removing which
might not be a viable option since those images might be of utmost necessity to
the web content. The formats used for these images are JPEG,GIF and PNG. The
format that one uses depends on the images. For example, for “realistic”portraiture
of images, one uses the JPEG format, and those with solid colours with logos
and charts must be in the format of GIF or PNG. The format in which they are
saved gives different colours and quality to the images.
MINIFY JAVA SCRIPT AND IMPROVE LOAD TIME
It is a good thing for the web owner as well as the visitor
to improve the load time. One should take way redundant materials from the
script, which implies minifying the Java Script. It is to be kept in mind that
characters such as new line, tab, and space counts are also regarded as
redundant characters and hence should be removed o speed up the response time. Some
tools that can be used to implement this application of saving time are YU ICompressor
and JSMin.
AVOID REDIRECTS AT
ALL COSTS
One of the important facts that must be kept in mind in
order to avoid the decrease of speed iS the allowance of redirects. If one
inserts a redirect between an user and an HTML document, the process
automatically slows down something that
is totally undesirable by the visitors of the site. If one has to insert a direct,
then using the standard 3xxHTTP is the preferred technique. This should be done
when avoiding a redirect becomes an impossibility and gets to the status of an
absolute necessity.
REMOVE DUPLICATE
SCRIPTS
There are innumerable sites that makes use of duplicate scripts. Duplicate
scripts leads to the destruction of the website since it leads to unnecessary
HTTP requests that are of no vital relevance to the site. This duplicate script
is perceived in those using Internet Explorer as their primary browser while
surfing the web. Hence, using Mozilla Firefox can be a viable alternative.
