The 5 Key Areas That Influence Site Speed
A lot goes into a website. Paying closer attention to the following areas can help increase website speed and performance.
1. Development Improvements
Front End Technologies – What You Should Know
- Templating Role: Templating Languages are somewhat of a hot topic nowadays. While some argue they’re irrelevant, a lot of website owners are migrating and trying to hit better Lighthouse Scores without any JS Framework.
- Template Caching: Aka Dynamic Page Caching, Template Caching allows you to cache entire templates, making your pages much more lightweight.
- Template Rendering: A template provides the basic HTML and serves it to the users. If you use a templated website builder, they sometimes create messy code that can slow your site.
- Browser Performance Usage: Maximise what you can do with the built-in browser tools or browser extensions to improve speed.
2. JS Plugins
Improve JavaScript performance. Use the checklist below to improve application performance.
- Cache in the browser
- Remove superfluous JavaScript
- Avoid using too much memory
- Defer the load of JavaScript that is not required
- Prioritize access to local variables
- Implement the optimizations that you would apply in any other programming language
- Skip using global variables
- Use tools to detect problems (Scroll up to view our favorite diagnostic tools.)
3. CSS Performance
It’s essential to optimize your CSS so that it’s faster-loading, simpler to work with, and more efficient. The following tips will help you maximize CSS performance.
- Replace images with CSS effects
- Eliminate unnecessary fonts
- Use modern layout techniques
- Reduce CSS code
- Simplify your selectors
- Use CSS animations (CSS animations will not work in older browsers such as IE9 and below)
- Adopt SVG images
- Avoid Base64 Bitmap images
- Consider progressive rendering (it defines individual stylesheets for separate components)
4. CSS & JS is Designed for Various Channels
CSS and JavaScript are both intricate parts of a webpage with HTML but play different roles. JS, CSS layouts, and responsive designs must be applicable for various communication channels with so many frameworks coming out.
5. APIs
An API (Application Programming Interface) allows applications to access data and interact with other software, operating systems, or servers. APIs are responsible for delivering a user response to a system and sending the system’s response back to the user.
Here’s what to consider when it comes to APIs.
Headless APIs: A headless CMS can deliver your content through an API directly to where you need it. They make content accessible for display on any device, without a built-in front-end or presentation layer.
API Access: API Access ensures calls with authenticated logins can enter APIs. APIs can also access user data when given permission.
API Caching: API Caching allows you to store copies of frequently accessed data in several places along the request-response path. You can set caching instructions for your entire API.