There are many tips to help increase the speed in which your site's pages load for your visitors. The tips are found in three main areas for optimization: The source code that writes the web page, the network and bandwidth considerations, and the visitor's browser settings.

The Source Code

The page should be as efficient and as small as possible. When someone requests a page from a website, the website should start sending the page within milliseconds. There are ways for developers to send the pages almost instantaneously. These methods include, going to the database as few times as possible, deciding which parts of a page should be cached and which parts should not, using the most efficient code (e.g., loops, traversing arrays, incrementing variables), and determining if parts of the web page can be delivered immediately, while more information can be delivered a few seconds later or on demand from the site visitor.

Network and Bandwidth

The network can be architected for the shortest trip between the website and the visitor. How can you do that if your visitors could be anywhere in the world? Your webhost could copy your website to servers that are geographically distributed around the world, to reduce the number of miles the website has to travel to get to your audience's computers. This distribution is called a Content Delivery Network. YouTube uses a content delivery network to transfer huge video files to visitors around the world. Not all of the videos are coming from their main San Bruno office; they have servers hosted around the US and around the world to get you the videos quickly.

Despite the increased adoption of broadband, allowing larger files to be transmitted in less time, we still must be cognizant of file size. The file size of the web page should be small, as should the contributory files like graphics, and client-side code. Any information that is not used for the current web page is bloated filespace. Do you really need those images on your web page to have 300 dpi resolution, or can it be downsized for 72- or 96- dpi monitors? Can parts of some files be reused on multiple pages on your site? Reusability will improve performance, as well as consistency across your entire site.

Visitor Browser Settings

There are dozens of browsers out there, all running varied versions of software. How do you know how your visitors will view the site? You can detect the browser and make adjustments to the information you provide them. If someone is viewing your site on an iPhone, the website should be viewed comfortably at 320x240 resolution. Text-only browsers need the images to include "Alt" tags where you want to provide a title or description of the image's content. If these browser settings aren't dizzying enough, the visitor could have customized the default settings, turning off JavaScript, or adjusting the cache settings, turned off images, or doesn't have a third-party viewer like Shockwave/Flash installed. Testing for all of these permutations takes effort, code, and time to develop and download the webpage that matches the visitor's settings. You can make your site complicated and visually stunning for visitors with specific settings; just make sure there is something of your site that the rest of your audience can enjoy as well.

If you would like more details on any of these performance-enhancement considerations, contact ShoreShot! Web Design.