How to increase the speed of your website: seven actionable steps to take
Tags: webdev, seo
Published: 2022-05-07 01:18:05

When it comes to the performance of your website, page speed is crucial.

Yet, you may find it difficult to improve unless you understand how this metric works — and more specifically, the factors that influence it.

It is critical that your web pages load fast and smoothly to reduce your bounce rate and increase visitor engagement.

A site that is optimized for speed not only improves the user experience (UX) but can also help you rank higher in search engines.

In this article, I’ll explain why it's important, and show you how to measure it. Then I'll give you seven solutions for improving page loading speed.

**Why is page speed important?**
As before stated, site speed can quickly determine whether a user stays on your website. But it's even more significant than that. When determining which websites to show at the top of search engine results pages, search engines, particularly Google, place a high-value on-site speed when determining which websites show at the top of the search engine results page(SERP). Website speed optimization improves search engine optimization (SEO), so it shouldn’t be overlooked.

For measuring page speed, [Google's PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) is fit for that. [Google's PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) is a website speed testing tool that ranks your site's speed on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher scores being better.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ozir5zwvx6w0wv4mjxhj.png)

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n9utfxwm6gnnwflfu0fr.png)

Google PageSpeed Insights will generate tests for both desktop and mobile, as well as recommendations for how to improve your speed score.

## How to increase your page speed

**Optimize images**
Most web pages are slow due to large image files which causes an enormous increase in load time for pages. When setting up your assets for a page. Optimize your images by reducing the file size or by replacing the file format. Optimize your images using [tinyjpg.com](tinyjpg.com).

Use jpg or webp(recommended) file format if you’re going for smaller sizes.

**Minify Html, CSS, and js**
By optimizing your code, you can increase your page speed. Also remove code comments, formatting, and unused code. [Google recommends using HtmlMinifier, CSSNano, and UglifyJS](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/MinifyResources). 

**Use browser caching**
Browser caching is one of the most popular methods for increasing page speed. By caching a large amount of information in your visitors' browsers. The browser does not have to reload the entire page when they return. Learn more about leveraging browser caching [here](https://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/caching.html)

**Use a content delivery network(CDN)**
Content delivery networks (CDNs), also known as content distribution networks are server networks that distribute the load of delivering content. Essentially, copies of your site are stored at multiple, geographically diverse data centers so that users can access your site more quickly and reliably. Learn how to use CDN on your site [here](https://www.pingdom.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-using-cdns-2/)

**Reduce redirects**
When a page redirects to another page, your visitor must wait for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete. For instance, if your mobile redirect pattern is as follows:

example.com -> www.example.com -> m.example.com -> m.example.com/home

Each redirect slows down the load time of your page.

**Remove render-blocking JavaScript**
Before they can render a page, browsers must first construct a DOM tree by parsing HTML. If your browser comes across a script during this process, it must stop and execute it before proceeding.

Scripts that are not critical to the initial render should be made asynchronous or deferred until after the first render. Scripts required to render page content can be inlined to avoid extra network requests; but, inlined content must be small and fast to deliver good performance. Learn more on how to Remove render-blocking JavaScript [here](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/BlockingJS)

**Improve server response time**
The amount of traffic you receive, the resources used by each page, the software on your server, and the hosting solution you use all have an impact on your server response time. Look for performance bottlenecks such as slow database queries, slow routing, or a lack of enough memory, and fix them to improve your server response time. The ideal server response time is less than 200ms. Learn more on how to improve server response time [here ](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server)

When you checkmark all these step perfectly, Your site will be at its top speed.