10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website

Google recently announced that they were going to start considering site speed as a search engine ranking factor.

Google Webmaster’s Official Blog states: “Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed – that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”

That is the second most important reason to have a fast website. The top reason is showing your visitors the information they want fast so they don’t leave your website.

These are 10 things you can do to speed up your site.

1. Use External CSS and Script Files
   Don’t include CSS or JavaScript code in your HTML documents. Create separate files and call out to them when necessary.
2. Use DIVs for Layout
   Avoid using tables.
3. More Is Less
   Remove elements you don’t really need.
4. Optimize Your Images
   Use this software to reduce the size of your images.
5. Don’t Use Images to Display Text
   With CSS styles you can make text look pretty much any way you want.
6. Use Clean Code
   Get rid of unnecessary code.
7. Use Trailing Slashes When Linking to Directories
   If you have your blog in a folder called “blog”, link to www.yoursite.co.uk/blog/ (with a trailing slash at the end) as opposed to www.yoursite.co.uk/blog.
8. Use the Height and Width Tags
   Don’t forget to use these tags for images and other elements.
9. Avoid the Excessive Use of Flash
   Flash animations can really slow your website down; avoid them if possible.
   
10. Choose your web host carefully
    If you are a UK based business then it is crucial to have a UK based Web Host with verifiable performance and availability measurements.

Need to improve the performance of your website?

Contact one of our Hosting Specialists today to see how you could benefit from Netcetera’s superior network performance and service.