Web Development Tips; How to Improve Your Website’s Performance

Web development requires a set of unique skills and like anything, can take years to master. However, we know the importance of understanding the job that someone is doing for you. When you work with a web designer, you can visually see the differences that are being made. But, when it comes to a web developer the differences are often behind the scenes and not visible.

As a client, this can sometimes make web development difficult to understand how these changes can impact your website's performance. But is your website loading slow? Maybe it isn't looking as good on mobile as it could be? Maybe buttons aren't working as they should? All of these things can affect your website performance and it's up to a trained web developer to put them right. Having a go yourself by following an online tutorial may work if you have some idea what you're doing, but we wouldn't recommend it. You'd be surprised at how quickly you can break an entire website if you don't know what you're doing!

Here's a breakdown of some tips and tricks web developers use to improve on your website's performance so that you can understand a little bit more about the tasks we say that we are doing.

Cleaning Up Your HTML

HTML is also known as ‘hypertext markup language' and it is essentially the code that is used to make your website look and function the way it does. It allows web developers to organise and structure the website in a way that is good for both Google and your users. However, if the proper practice isn't used from the offset, HTML can become messy. We can work to clean up this HTML coding so that it's effective and concise whilst achieving the results we want to achieve.

Removing The Un-Necessities

In our lives, no matter what aspect we look at, there's always something we don't need. Whether it's a pair of socks or that extra 9th kitchen knife, there is always something we can remove to streamline our day-to-day business. Your website is no different. We can look at ways to improve your website by going through the entirety of your site with a fine toothpick and remove those added extras that don't necessarily add to the user's experience, but in fact, hinder it. This could be anything from unnecessary images that don't have a purpose to plugins that aren't being utilised.

Optimising Images

Speaking of images, the ones that we do want to remain on the website want to be as optimised as they possibly can be. Images, if not uploaded correctly, can be one of the biggest causes of a slow website. It's important that they are looked at by a web developer to see if they are optimised. Super high-resolution images may look incredible, but they could also increase your user's load speed which may result in them dropping off. There are things we can do to better performance by making your image files smaller, but still looking as great as they should.

Utilise Browser Caching

This may sound like we're speaking in a foreign language, but bear with us! This is where a large part or most of our recently loaded web pages and data are stored in your web browser e.g. Google Chrome, Firefox. As your web browser is essentially remembering and memorising what you've looked at, it makes your experience quicker on a website. By taking advantage of browser caching, you're creating a quicker, seamless web experience for your customers which is always a positive in a generation of impatient shoppers!

We hope this has helped in further understanding of the type of web development work we do here at Way Fresh. Although you may not necessarily be able to see it, it most definitely affects your website!