Why site optimization is important?
Optimizing your site's loading speed is extremely important for many reasons. The user doesn't want to wait too long for the page to load, and search engines like Google don't like sites that load slowly. So, it is an important SEO factor.
Ideally, the site should load in less than three seconds or, even better, two. When the site is well optimized, it will load faster on the server and thus it can more easily accept a larger number of visitors.
These reasons are enough for you to devote yourself more seriously to optimization.
What should be done to optimize the page loading speed?
This is a checklist of what should be done to optimize the page:
✔️ Optimize images
✔️ Minify JavaScript and CSS
✔️ Reduce the number of file requests ie. files by combining CSS
✔️ Reduce the number of file requests by combining JS
✔️ Defer loading of JavaScipt when possible
✔️ Improve caching
✔️ Reduce the number of redirects (301)
✔️ Turn on GZIP compression
✔️ Reduce the number of plugins
First of all, you should choose a hosting with a good server response, which should be less than 200ms. Also, the site must be adapted to mobile devices (responsive), because today they make up the vast majority of traffic.
Image optimization
Images can be optimized in many ways and there are many apps and web tools for this. Image optimization is reducing the image size to the size that is displayed on the site. If the page displays an image with a size of 400 x 400 pixels, then such a resolution should be on the server. Also, recommended image formats should be used when possible such as webp format.
🔹 ImageMagick - This is a great tool that you can use via the command line or terminal.
🔹 Photoshop or similar photo editing tool
Minification of CSS and JavaScript, some of the web tools
Minification is the removal of all unnecessary data, comments, and lines from the file.
🔹 Minify
Tools for measuring site speed
🔹 GTmetrix
The above speed measuring tools are extremely useful and a great guideline on what to do next to get the desired results.
Maybe some of the steps don't seem too significant, but every second counts, and I'm sure the search engines and users will reward you for your efforts sooner or later.