How to improve your website/forum performance

[Cedric]

I want to discuss the methods available on how to improve the performance aspect of a website/forum. There's several reasons why the performance of a website needs to be excellent.

1. User experience: No one likes a slow website. Websites that load quickly and perform well provide a better user experience for visitors. Users are more likely to stay on your website longer and to return in the future if they have a good experience.
2. Search engine rankings: Search engines, such as Google, use website performance as a ranking factor. Websites that load quickly and perform well may rank higher in search results, which can lead to more traffic and potential customers. Don't forget mobile users!
3. Conversion rates: Website performance can impact conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form). Studies have shown that slow-loading websites can have lower conversion rates, as users are less likely to complete a desired action if they have to wait too long for a page to load.
4. Cost savings: Poor website performance can lead to increased hosting and bandwidth costs, as the server has to work harder to handle requests and transmit data. Improving website performance can help to reduce these costs.

Overall, good website performance is important for providing a good user experience, improving search engine rankings, increasing conversion rates, and reducing costs. Ensuring that your website performs well can have a positive impact on your business or organization.

GTMetrix is a great tool to check on a regularly basis and see what areas needs improvement.

One of the most overlooked method is optimizing images - It's very important not to overload the user with heavy images. Large images can significantly impact website performance, as they take longer to load and consume more bandwidth. To optimize images, consider using image compression tools to reduce the file size of your images, and use appropriate image file formats (such as JPEG or PNG) for the type of image you are using.

What other methods do you know of that are available to improve the performance?

 

[Cory]

I've used GTMetrix before, but I also use Lighthouse, which directly integrates with my Google Chrome developer tools.

One of the most overlooked method is optimizing images - It's very important not to overload the user with heavy images.

The funny thing about images is people often think JavaScript is what bogs down their site when images generally take up way more file space than JavaScript. I've tried explaining this to so many people before, but they still often seem leery of JavaScript.

 

[Cedric]

I've used GTMetrix before, but I also use Lighthouse, which directly integrates with my Google Chrome developer tools.


The funny thing about images is people often think JavaScript is what bogs down their site when images generally take up way more file space than JavaScript. I've tried explaining this to so many people before, but they still often seem leery of JavaScript.

To go further on that JS reply, hosting JS externally also improves performance. But I think you may be better to explain about that.

Edit: Cory’s article

 

[Cory]

To go further on that JS reply, hosting JS externally also improves performance. But I think you may be better to explain about that.

All explained in my article.

 

[Arantor]

I will say to be careful with such advice because absolutes... aren't always so absolute. Yes, external hosting *can* improve performance, provided that your problem was that you were hitting the parallel download limit, and not asset pipelining as part of HTTP/2 or newer. But on the flip side, if that external hosting is not just part of the script queue but a blocking resource in the queue, you will almost certainly make everything slower while it's waiting for that unless you luck out and it's something in a local cache.

So, performance... optimising images absolutely worth doing. There are few arguments against WebP at this point, though WebP isn't a magic bullet _despite_ what GTMetrix and Lighthouse tell you, because I can routinely get PNGs that are smaller than comparable WebP and the only way to reduce the size of the WebP is to ramp up the compression to a level that produces a visible loss of quality.

Obviously, the less data you're sending, the better. The other usual rules apply: don't load up your site with many external scripts - because hosted externally or not, if you have to make 100 requests to JS to load the page it's going to suck whatever happens.

The other question few people really talk about is TTFB: time to first byte. If that number hurts, it doesn't matter *what* you do, you're trying to ice-skate uphill at that point. In a WP land this usually means scrapping your page builder and using a real theme, putting the list of plugins on a diet etc. - other scripts will vary as to what you have to do.