Website Optimisation Techniques

1. Integrate CSS & JavaScript inside Webpage

Having a URL to an external CSS or JavaScript file inside a webpage for your CSS declarations will cause a client's web browser to create another Internet request to the web server for this file. Even though this could be an ideal solution if your CSS is many lines long, it is really an improvement on your web server and improves the speed for your Internet visitors by including this code into the webpage. This could be simply done by encapsulating the code inside the STYLE tags. Having a page request one rather than two files is ultimately an improvement.

2. Integrate JavaScript Code inside Webpage

As suggested previously as usual all JavaScript code is placed into a seperate file and the URL to this file placed inside the header of the HTML webpage. As discussed, decrease the overall size of your webpage and improve code readability, this isn't a suitable situation for search engine optimisation purposes and providing speed for your visitors. Follow the suggestion above and include the code inside your webpage, otherwise if you link to many files, simply include them all inside one JavaScript file which is then referenced.

3. Avert Website Redirects

301 webpage redirects are usually a solution for a website to guarantee the website visitors are redirected to the valid page upon entry into a website. Even though this does guarantee the suitable website content is displayed to the end user, it is not ultimately the suitable situation for performance reasons. This is because the 301 header provides the client web browser a URL to be diverted, when the web browser receiving this URL it then sends another request to the web server requesting the webpage it is being diverted to. As you can see this causes two requests to be sent to the server causing inefficiency. Although it is not always possible to get round this, you could always design your website using a dynamic scripting language in which the content is pulled into the webpage. Easier said than done if your website doesn't use dynamic scripting technology.

4. Improve your Web Server

When web servers are configured on servers they are normally defined with a default configuration which is suitable for usually all setups. This "out-of-the-box" setup may very well guarantee your website is running, but it might not be running as effectively to its ability. Depending on your web server, services running on the server, and any dynamic scripting languages being used it is possible to optimise your web server for optimal effectiveness. Some suggestions have been provided for optimising Apache web server:

--Improve Apache Web Server

* Compiling PHP into Apache - PHP can be quite simply compiled within Apache web server, implementing this would enable PHP and Apache to work together quicker and render content to your end-users more quickly.
* Choosing Modules - Inside both Apache and PHP you can restrict what components can be loaded when either of the two programs are executed. The more modules which are included the slower your web server becomes. Do an analysis of each single component to establish whether they are needed for your requirements.
* Apache Workers - Apache can be setup to provide an optimised number of workers to stream content to web browser clients, you can setup a minimum as well as a maximum number of workers which can be spread dependant upon the load request on the server.

6. Limit No. of Images within the Design

Website designs look very flash and impressive when pictures are implemented inside the design. Even though this could look stunning to the human eye, it is not very performance friendly when users are downloading your website to view it. For every image which is embedded into a webpage using the IMG tag causes the client's web browser to open another request to the server to download the image. So if you have 10 pictures on a page and no other embedded components, then the client's web browser will send 11 requests to the server (one for the webpage and ten for the images). The fewer the images on your webpage the quicker your web server and website will run and provide content to your end-users.

7. Avert CSS Expressions

CSS expressions have been introduced into Microsoft Internet Explorer since version 5 and provide excellent features to update CSS properties dynamically. However, this may come at a price as the CSS expressions are evaluated on a more periodic basis that you may first imagine. When a webpage is rendered, resized, or even when the mouse is moved the CSS expression is evaluated, in which this could simply provide a negative performance to the end-user in their web browser. This can be overcome by simply setting the property once in which the expression is overwrited once it has ran, this still allows you to run it dynamically but also guarantees performance for the end-user.

8. Change Web Hosting Servers

If your website is hosted on a shared web hosting server package then this may enormously affect the operation and speed of your website depending on the hardware installed on the server. There are multiple factors on the web hosting company side that would affect the speed of your website, websites being based on the server could affect the efficiency, hardware built-in on the server, the backbone configuration of the web hosts network, the speed of the switches in the network, the speed of the connection between the web host's network and the ISP etc etc. To guarantee a optimal and trustworthy web host is chosen it would be worth while reading reviews on possible web hosting companies, these can then be reduced down to the ones hosted by geographical location as well as the web hosting serivces they provide.

9. Use a Content Delivery Network

Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs for short, are businesses that provide web hosting services for the images of your website and distribute these amongst their collection of servers situated geographically around the world. This guarantees your website runs at optimal speed regardless of the geographical location of the visitor to your website.

10. Avert Streaming Content

For streaming content from your website you need to have the precise web hosting resources available. Streaming videos on your website could simply effect the operation of your web server if the streaming content and the web server itself are based on the same machine. If your website experiences a large amount of traffic then it would probably be best to out-source the content streaming to an external company who specialises with these requisites for websites. Businesses pursuing in content delivery are as follows:

* Akamai Technologies
* Mirror Image Internet
* Limelight Networks

11. Avert Using Flash or SilverLight

An optimal broadband connection is restricted and therefore won't be available for every visitor to your website, even with mobile broadband speeds are very slowly and some people still use dial-up, so limiting the amount of Flash content on your website is a good idea. Flash content requires downloading the SWF file which can usually be quite large and demanding on your Internet connection. Restricting Flash content to advertisements maybe a good solution

12. Expiry Headers for all Webpage Components

Expiry headers in websites can optimise the speed at which your website can be navigated. By implementing cache-control you are able to control which files residing on the web server can be cached by the client's web browser. This can be simply integrated within a .htaccess file using the mod_expires module within Apache. This is normally suggested for website designs that will remain consistent as you can specify this for specific file types, e.g. pictures enabling that only pictures will be cached in the user's web browser.

13. Reduce DNS Lookups

Having more than one domain name references on a webpage will cause in many DNS lookups. This is done for every distinct domain or sub-domain which is used within the webpage for referencing content, whether it would be images or ads from an advertising network, the client browser will do a DNS lookup on each one it finds. These DNS lookups are simply queries so they are no too heavy on an Internet connection, but the more DNS lookups you have the more the client browser has todo. When integrating advertisements on your website from an ad delivery network this will increase the number of DNS lookups required for entering your website, therefore you should keep the number of ads from different ad networks to a minimum.

14. Delete Repeated Script References

JavaScript or CSS files may be referenced numerous times within a webpage. When this is the case then the web browser client will need to request the file multiple times therefore increasing the bandwidth on your server causing a negative effect on operation. You should thoroughly inspect all your web pages that there are no repeated references to the exact same files your web pages need to view precisely.

15. Dynamic Webpage Content Flushing

Flushing allows webpage content that has been partly generated inside a web page to be forwarded to the end-user's web browser prior to the webpage being completely rendered. This allows the browser to start requesting other elements which the webpage is dependant upon rather than waiting until the complete content has been rendered. a function exists within PHP 'flush()' that allows this, but if your web page is really taking a couple of seconds to generate then there is assumably something wrong with your PHP script. Consider redesigning your PHP script initially before implementing the flush feature if this is the case.

16. Minimise No. Of Iframes

Initial thought should be employed when integrating iFrames inside web pages as they could be resource heavy on the end-user's web browser. There are numerous benefits with iFrames but they do obstruct the webpage whilst downloading.

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