Visiting a website generally consists of two steps. The web browser that the user accesses the website from requests the website files from the server that they are hosted on. The web server then responds to the request, and the browser displays the website. The time that takes place between these two simple steps is what is known as “response time.”
Generally, when it takes a long time for a browser to display a website, there are two factors that could be contributing to the delay. These factors are the website’s lack of optimization for speed, and/or the server’s limited capabilities. It’s a good idea to make sure both are taken care of in order to ensure quick load times.
Optimizing a Website for Speed
The first step in optimizing your website’s load time is to identify exactly what is making your site slow. Maybe the design you’re using is too bulky, or you depend too heavily on third-party content and widgets. Whatever the case may be, there are many factors that can majorly bottleneck a website’s load time. These are a few tips for optimizing it.
Start by assessing your website with a site like WebPagetest.org to see where your specific problem areas lie. There are also other sites online where you can run a website speed test. From there, check your image file sizes, use CSS sprites to combine CSS coding, cut down on coding in general, and using gZip on your server to compress your website.
Optimizing a Server for Speed
The second step in getting quicker load times is to optimize your server for speed. There are several culprits that can dramatically increase how long it takes to load your website, and they are how much traffic your website is getting, how resource-intensive it is, what software your server is running, and what type of web hosting your subscribed to.
To improve circumstances on your server’s end, you should always go for the most flexible package possible if you are a hosting customer. Dedicated hosting is one of the most powerful types of hosting available, simply because it leaves all of the server’s resources free for handling your website alone. Be sure to use quality server hosting software on a dedicated server, and pair it with a generous amount of bandwidth. Doing just these three things should decrease server response time in no time.