Plan for performance
Are you building a new website? Be sure to discuss the importance of performance early on and set targets. That way, you have a faster load speed from the beginning and don’t have to implement fixes later.
Step 1: test, step 2: test…
Are you seeing a pattern here? 😉 Testing is crucial! Before you launch, load and test your website multiple times to make sure you can handle the traffic of real site visitors. This is especially important for sites with complex hosting, such as load-balanced configuration.
Implement some “quick wins”
To be clear, there’s no “get fast quick” scheme for site load speeds. But there is a tried-and-true template that will put you ahead of the curve. That includes making use of modern image formats, enabling compression on the server via Gzip, and leveraging browser cache. Find some more low-hanging fruit here.
Careful of your images!
Good websites have great graphic content – but they also take into account how images impact load speed. You can improve image performance by considering file formats, image compression, and lazy loading.
Think of the mobile visitors
More and more people surf the web on their phone these days, which makes mobile-optimized sites a huge priority! Since mobile users tend to use slower, less stable Internet connections, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) are a great way to get them content faster.
Prioritize above-the-fold
First impressions matter – and your above-the-fold content can make or break them! Consider inline styling for above-the-fold, then loading your code in chunks. This type of asynchronous loading can create a faster perceived load time for the user.
Assess your external scripts
Third-party scripts are a great tool – but can make your website feel a little crowded. Assess the performance of external scripts on your site load speed, and replace or remove those that are negatively impacting user experience.