How to optimise a website’s speed and performance

The old adage that “good things come to those who wait” might be true in some circumstances, but is not a great motto when it comes to website performance. In today’s increasingly digitalised world, we’re used to having all the information we need at our fingertips: that’s why the speed and performance of a website matters.

Web users now expect fast responses and a stress-free navigation experience. Anything that causes delays or complicates the search process is bound to cause frustration, and might quickly drive your visitors away.

And poor website performance doesn’t just affect the user experience. It also negatively impacts search engine rankings and a website’s domain authority, meaning your amazing content will have less chances to be found. Those who do find it might be discouraged from further browsing because they’re expecting long load times. The result? You guessed it: less traffic and poor conversion rates.

At Pod, we’re passionate about helping clients to attract and retain their website visitors’ attention - so we’ve developed a tried and tested process to help your website load faster.

Cut and cache

The first step to optimising a website is to assess its performance. To do that, we use a variety of online tools, such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix or Pingdom. After we’ve established how your website is performing and the areas on which we need to focus, the actual optimisation process can begin.

The key to improving speed is to minimise the amount and size of the files the website needs to load. By reducing the number of files, combining CSS and JavaScript files, and optimising images through compression tools, we can reduce HTTP requests and improve load times.

Then, we can cache these files to further enhance performance. Caching is the process of storing files in a temporary storage space, or cache. Browser caching reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded when a user visits the website, improving the website’s speed. We can do this by either adding caching headers to your server, or by using the caching plugin of a content management system like WordPress.

Strip and distribute

The next step is to remove unnecessary code from the website. This process is called minification, and consists of stripping a code file of data that isn’t required. Essentially, the text-based sections of your website are re-written to reduce the files’ size and help the website load them faster. At this stage, we also optimise your database queries to further improve the website’s overall performance.

Optionally, we can implement a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute the website’s content across multiple servers. This can reduce latency and improve load times for users who are accessing your websites from locations other than the main server’s. The cache is usually located closer to the application or user who needs to access it, so the files in it can be retrieved faster compared to files that are stored in the remote storage system.

Adapt and monitor

According to the Boston Consulting Group, more than 60% of B2B buyers used their mobile for a recent purchase, and 70% of them increased mobile use significantly over the past two to three years.

As a result, the last step of our optimisation process involves adapting the website’s design to improve mobile performance. This can be achieved by using responsive design, reducing the number of elements on the page, and minimising the use of large images and videos.

Finally, it’s important to continuously monitor the website, so potential issues can be addressed quickly. To do that, we implement software to track the performance over time and identify areas that need further improvement.

When it comes to your website, good things don’t come to those who wait. If you need some support in ensuring your visitors easily find and browse your content, our experienced web developers can help. Get in touch with us today and find out how we can get your website up to speed.