Advanced Strategies for Website Speed Optimisation

In the digital landscape, website speed is more than a luxury; it’s a necessity. As user expectations for fast, seamless online experiences continue to rise, businesses must prioritise website speed optimisation to stay competitive. In a previous post, we covered the basics of website speed optimisation, including image and media optimisation, minifying code, enabling browser caching, using a Content Delivery Network (CDN), optimising server response time, and leveraging Gzip compression. While these strategies form the foundation of speed optimisation, there are more advanced techniques that can help you take your website’s performance to the next level. In this post, we’ll delve into these advanced strategies, providing you with the knowledge and tools to further enhance your website’s speed and user experience.

1. Understanding the Critical Rendering Path

The Critical Rendering Path (CRP) is a sequence of steps that your browser follows to convert the code in your website into actual pixels on the screen. It involves everything from processing your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to calculating layouts and painting pixels. Optimising the CRP is crucial for improving your website’s speed, as it directly impacts how quickly your pages can start rendering.

To optimise the CRP, you need to minimise the amount of work the browser has to do. This can be achieved through several methods:

• Minimise the number of critical resources: Critical resources are those that are necessary for the initial rendering of the page. The fewer of these resources, the less work the browser has to do.
• Minimise the size of each critical resource: Smaller files take less time to download, which speeds up the CRP.
• Optimise the order in which critical resources are loaded: Resources should be loaded in a way that maximises efficiency and minimises idle time.

Understanding and optimising the CRP can seem complex, but it’s a powerful strategy for improving your website’s speed and performance. Google provides a comprehensive guide to understanding and optimising the CRP, which can be a valuable resource as you work to enhance your website’s speed.

2. Implementing HTTP/2

HTTP/2 is the latest version of the HTTP protocol and brings several improvements over its predecessor, HTTP/1.1. These improvements include multiplexing, server push, header compression, and prioritisation, all of which can significantly enhance your website’s speed and performance.

Multiplexing allows multiple requests and responses to be sent simultaneously, reducing the impact of latency. Server push enables the server to send resources to the client proactively, reducing the need for round-trip requests. Header compression reduces overhead, and prioritisation allows more important resources to be sent first.

To implement HTTP/2, you’ll need to check with your hosting provider or CDN. Most modern servers and CDNs support HTTP/2, but it may need to be enabled manually. You can check if your website is already using HTTP/2 using online tools like HTTP/2 Test.

3. Preloading, Prefetching, and Preconnecting Resources

Preloading, prefetching, and preconnecting are powerful techniques that can help speed up your website by loading resources before they’re needed.

• Preloading is a way to tell the browser to load a resource as soon as possible because it will be needed later. This is particularly useful for resources that are discovered late in the loading process, like fonts or images in CSS.
• Prefetching is a way to tell the browser to load resources that might be needed in the future. This is useful for resources that are not needed for the current page but will likely be needed for a future navigation, like the resources on a user’s next likely page.
• Preconnecting is a way to tell the browser to set up a connection to a third-party domain before the resources from that domain are needed. This can significantly speed up the loading of resources from that domain.

You can implement these techniques using <link> tags in your HTML with the rel attribute set to preload, prefetch, or preconnect. For example, <link rel="preload" href="style.css" as="style"> would preload the style.css file.

4. Optimising Third-Party Scripts

Third-party scripts, such as analytics scripts, advertising scripts, or social media widgets, can significantly impact your website’s speed. These scripts often require additional network requests and can block the rendering of your page.

To optimise third-party scripts, you should:

• Evaluate the necessity of each script: Do you really need this script? If not, consider removing it.
• Load scripts asynchronously: This allows the script to be downloaded in the background without blocking the rendering of your page.
• Host scripts locally: If possible, download the script and host it on your own server. This reduces the impact of network latency and gives you more control over the script.

Remember, every third-party script you add to your website is a potential point of failure and can impact your website’s speed and security. Therefore, it’s crucial to carefully consider the cost and benefit of each script.

5. Server-Side Rendering (SSR) vs. Client-Side Rendering (CSR)

Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Client-Side Rendering (CSR) are two different methods of rendering your website’s content, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed and performance.

With SSR, your server generates a fully rendered HTML page in response to a request, which can then be displayed by the browser immediately. This can significantly improve the perceived speed of your website and is beneficial for SEO, as search engines can easily crawl and index the rendered content.

On the other hand, CSR involves rendering the page in the user’s browser using JavaScript. This can result in a faster initial page load, as the server only needs to send a small amount of HTML and JavaScript. However, the page cannot be displayed until the JavaScript has been downloaded and executed, which can lead to a delay in content being visible.

Choosing between SSR and CSR depends on your specific needs and the nature of your website. For content-heavy websites, SSR is often the better choice, while CSR can be beneficial for web applications with complex interactions.

6. Implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source project designed to make web pages load faster on mobile devices. AMP achieves this by creating a stripped-down version of your web page that only includes the essential content. This can significantly improve the speed of your website on mobile devices, leading to a better user experience and potentially higher search engine rankings.

Implementing AMP involves creating an alternate version of your web pages that follow the AMP HTML standard. This can be a complex process, but there are tools and plugins available that can simplify it. For example, if your website is built with WordPress, you can use the AMP for WordPress plugin to automatically generate AMP versions of your pages.

Once you’ve implemented AMP, you can validate your pages using the AMP Test tool provided by Google. This tool will check your pages for compliance with the AMP standard and provide you with any errors or issues that need to be fixed.

While AMP can significantly improve your website’s speed on mobile devices, it’s important to note that it’s not a substitute for good overall website optimisation. You should still follow best practices for website speed optimisation, such as optimising images, minifying code, and leveraging browser caching.

7. Using Real User Monitoring (RUM) for Speed Optimisation

Real User Monitoring (RUM) is a type of performance monitoring that captures and analyses each transaction by users of your website. Unlike synthetic monitoring, which simulates user interactions, RUM collects data from actual users in real-time. This provides a more accurate picture of your website’s performance and can help you identify and fix speed issues that might not be apparent in lab testing.

RUM can provide valuable insights such as:

• Page Load Time: This is the total time it takes for a page to fully load. With RUM, you can see how page load time varies for different users, devices, and network conditions.
• Time to First Byte (TTFB): This is the time it takes for a user’s browser to receive the first byte of data from your server. A high TTFB can indicate server-side issues.
• First Contentful Paint (FCP): This is the time it takes for the first piece of content to appear on the screen. A high FCP can indicate issues with render-blocking resources or slow server response times.

There are several tools available for RUM, including Google Analytics, New Relic, and Akamai mPulse. These tools can provide you with detailed performance data and help you identify areas for improvement.

By monitoring your website’s performance with RUM, you can ensure that your speed optimisation efforts are having the desired effect and providing a better user experience.

Website speed optimisation is a continuous journey, not a one-time task. As technology evolves and user expectations rise, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and continuously seek ways to improve your website’s speed and performance. In this post, we’ve explored advanced strategies for website speed optimisation, from understanding the Critical Rendering Path to implementing HTTP/2, preloading resources, optimising third-party scripts, choosing between Server-Side Rendering and Client-Side Rendering, implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages, and using Real User Monitoring.

Remember, the goal of website speed optimisation is not just to improve your website’s performance metrics, but to provide a better, faster, and more enjoyable experience for your users. By implementing these advanced strategies, you can take a significant step towards achieving this goal.

If you need help implementing these strategies or if you’re looking for a comprehensive website speed optimisation service, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team of experienced web developers and SEO specialists are ready to help you create a lightning-fast website that delights your users and ranks high in search engine results.