{"id":145,"date":"2014-04-06T14:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexyz.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/06\/improving-a-websites-speed-a-qa-with-our-web-developer\/"},"modified":"2014-04-06T14:01:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T18:01:00","slug":"improving-a-websites-speed-a-qa-with-our-web-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexyz.com\/blog\/improving-a-websites-speed-a-qa-with-our-web-developer\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving a website’s speed: A Q&A with our web developer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/a><\/div>\n

\nWe asked our in-house developer Perry Toone a few questions about managing a website after we made a few minor changes to our website<\/a> over the past few months. <\/h4>\n

\n
Many of the changes we made to become fully compliant with Google’s updated terms.<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhat was a key factor in the recent improvements? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nI would say that the biggest area of improvement is speed. Many of the recent changes were made based on improving page load time. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nHow do you measure page load time? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIt is as simple as visiting a website and measuring how many milliseconds it takes to load. There are as couple of useful tools I used to check which also break down all the elements of a page, which allows you to see what exactly is putting the greatest load on the server. Pingdom<\/a> is one and Google<\/a> has one too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhat did you do to reduce the page load time? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nI reduced the size of all images and then compressed then. I then complied all the css and JavaScript code into one file. This shaved off a couple of bytes which slightly improved the page load time. I then looked at which elements on the page where causing the highest load on the server, and took steps to either replace or remove them. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhat was causing the highest load on the server? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThird party JavaScript was the biggest. This is hosted on another server which in turn ensures a slower page load time. We were using AddThis social connect buttons and the AddThis share widget. When I saw how much removing AddThis helped with reducing load time, I had to get rid of them. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhat did you use instead of AddThis? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe AddThis<\/a> social tools area really good, they are easy to setup and have a lot of customization functionality. The only thing negative with them is how many milliseconds they add to the page load time. I built custom social icons for the footer which removed reliance on JavaScript, as for the share buttons (found on Thexyz forum<\/a>) I used this lightweight option from digital point. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nWhat if you have to use third party applications? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nDisplaying them in Ajax or i frame is a good practice to help increase the page load time of these elements. Also if the third party application goes down, it ensures your site load is not affected. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nDo you have any other tips for reducing page load time? <\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nUse css as much as possible. Buttons are a good example of this. Instead of using an image you can create some fancy looking buttons with css. I also posted a tutorial on this here<\/b><\/u><\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIs improving the page load really that important?<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nYes. Not only does Google now say that it does have an impact on how they rank websites, it also improves the user experience. Nobody wants to wait a few seconds for a website to load. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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