Page speed is “page load time” that takes to display the whole content on a web page or “time to the first byte” (time of receiving the first byte of information from the web server by your browser). To check your Page Speed you can use Google’s tool that calls Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Page Speed is one of Google’s algorithm criteria for page result ranking. Slow speed may cause a problem when search engines crawl fewer pages using their crawl budget which negatively affects website indexation. Fast page speed is also very important for users too. Not many people will stay on a website that is annoyingly slow. When people leave just right after they entered a page, it increases the bounce rate which adversely affects Page Ranking. Why? Because Google takes it into account too, if people leave a web source too fast it means it’s not enough good, interesting, or useful. One of the main tasks of the Google search engine is to provide a user with the most relevant and of the highest quality content according to his request. Houston web design

To increase your website page speed you may use the next technique:

1. Enable compression

You can use Gzip, a software application for file compression, to reduce the size of your website core files (such as CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files). Read also our article – 5 must-haves for the website in 2019.  Houston web design

2. Optimize images

Don’t upload too big images. It should be no larger than they need to be. If it’s an image for an article, then 450-500px is more than enough. After resizing compress it using one of the online tools. I like this one compressjpeg.com, you just need to choose a format, whether it’s png or jpg. PNGs are generally better for graphics with fewer than 16 colors while JPEGs are generally better for photographs. Houston web design

You also can use  CSS sprites that allow creating a template for images that you are going to use frequently, for example, buttons, icons. Sprites combine images into one big image that loads all together and displays only the sections that need to be shown. This means that you are saving load time by not making users wait for multiple images to load. Houston web design

3. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML

Minify means removing spaces, commas, and other unnecessary characters in your website code. It can dramatically increase your website page speed. In addition, you can remove code comments, formatting, and unused code. Google recommends using CSSNano and UglifyJS. Houston web design

4. Reduce page redirects

Each time a page redirects to another page, your visitor faces additional time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete. For example, if your mobile redirect pattern looks like this: “example.com -> www.example.com -> m.example.com -> m.example.com/home,” each of those two additional redirects makes your page load slower. Houston web design

5. Remove render-blocking JavaScript

Browsers have to build a DOM tree (a page skeleton) by parsing HTML before they can render a page. If your browser encounters a script during this process, it has to stop and execute it before it can continue. User async and defer for your JS. to minimize the use of blocking JavaScript. Houston web design

6. Leverage browser caching

Browsers cache consists of a lot of information like code, images, scripts, and more, which allows a visitor’s browser do not to load the entire page every time he comes back. You can set your “expires” header for how long you want that information to be cached, usually, a year is a good time period. Houston web design

7.  Server response time

The optimal response time is less than 200ms.  Server response time can be affected by the amount of traffic you receive, the resources each page uses, the software your server uses, and the hosting. To improve your server response time, look for the performance of database queries, slow routing, or a lack of adequate memory and fix them. Learn more about optimizing your time to the first byte.Houston web design

8. CDN

Content distribution networks (CDNs) are networks of servers that are used to distribute the load of delivering content. It means copies of your site are stored at multiple, geographically diverse data centers so that users can have faster and more reliable access to your site. Houston web design