NetHosted Blog

The speed of a website isn’t something that should be left out of the web development process, but if it is, there are still many ways to improve it. Even if you aren’t the most web-savvy person in the world, some simple fixes can speed up your website significantly.

“Why does a website have to be fast?” I hear you ask – well there are a number of reasons. To start with, a planned update for Google named Caffeine is due anytime soon, with an emphasis on website speed and performance. This means that faster loading websites may start to rank higher in search engines. Another reason is that some Internet users may not necessarily have a fast connection (or even broadband), so it’s important to ensure you are catering for all of your users – not just a majority.

Here we explore some top tips to speed up a website running a WordPress CMS.

1. Combine the CSS files and remove any inline styling

When a user visits your website their internet browser has to download any external resources, and process the specified web page. Most web browsers (such as Internet Explorer and Firefox) can only download a certain number of concurrent files, so if you have 10 images and a number of style sheets, all of this information won’t be able to be downloaded in one action. To make the issue worse, a lot of WordPress themes include many different CSS style sheets.

To help reduce the number of calls a users’ browser has to make, you can do the following:

• Combine all of the CSS files into one single file
• Place any ‘inline’ styling into the main CSS file

Note: inline styling refers to CSS code that is used within a HTML document, and not in an external file.

2. Compress those images!

One massive issue on most websites nowadays is that they are image heavy – and this can often be the case for WordPress themes. Although a lot of them are professionally developed, WordPress is open source, meaning anybody can submit a theme for people to download – and they may not be of the greatest quality.

To reduce the document size of your webpage, try compressing any images using Smush.it; a fantastic Yahoo tool that can often shave seconds from the page load speed. You can either visit the Smush.it website, or install the YSlow Firefox extension.

3. Use Website Caching

To benefit users who are frequent visitors to your website, you should look to enhance the caching capabilities so they don’t have to sit through the loading process each time. There is a great WordPress plugin called WP Super Cache that is configurable to serve static html files to your users, instead of dynamic content each time they visit. The benefit of this is that it reduces the number of database calls and downloads that a browser has to make each time it visits the website.

4. Externalise any JavaScript

Similar to CSS styling, JavaScript code that is used in the HTML document can often increase the download time of a page significantly if it isn’t placed within an external file. Take note from the CSS optimisation and keep all JavaScript functions in a master file, as opposed to calling lots of different files each time a page is being loaded. If you cannot place all JavaScript within a single file, try limiting the amount of files being used, and only include a file if it is specifically needed on the individual page.

5. Use a fast web host that targets your main users’ geographic location

If you are based in the UK and the majority of your website traffic is coming from the UK, there is no use in having a web host that is in Australia. It is surprising how much page load time can be saved by ensuring your web hosting package is targeted to your main visitors’ location – and it is one of the main considerations that you should initially make.

Remember: you may think your website is fast loading, but always be sure to check on testing websites such as Pingdom, and also in Google Webmaster Tools for a more accurate listing.

Image used under Creative Commons License