When was the last time you waited a minute or so for a website to load? Can’t remember right. Well, that’s what signifies the importance of fast-loading, scalable, and effective websites.
In this digitally driven world, online presence is the order of the day. Whether you are into service delivery, manufacturing, education, or any other domain getting yourself online is necessary to get in touch with your target audience.
Websites happen to be the traditional common platform whereby potential revenue generation and customer interaction are made possible. A website rather than just a digital face of your business conveys various things to the visitor in regard to the creditability, and trust factor.
Just as the first impression is the last impression a good and effective website is the first step towards potential revenue generation. To drive the visitors to your website to make a call on your Call to Action (CTA) buttons you need to optimize the performance of your website.
To optimize the performance of the website you have to go to the crux of it all. Yes, you are right about the design part. Web designing is a crucial aspect of Website performance. Good web designing leads to the foundation of performance optimization and the effectiveness of a website.
Web designing services are thus the common request that firms in the e-commerce domain ask for when they want the performance of their website optimized. Web designing services offered by the IT & development firms bring in that required and comprehensive overhaul that is needed for lending performance optimization.
Understand the link between good web design and website performance
Wondering how can performance optimization be achieved through web designing? Worry not as we are going to look into the same in this blog. So, if you have that curiosity of knowing the link between good web designing and website performance enhancement then continue reading till the end.
Image Optimization
Images are those elements of your web page that add to the loading time of your website. Yes, it’s important to include them and you don’t have to eliminate them from your web design in order to optimize the performance. So, what is required to be done?
The answer to this is the optimization of the images on your web pages. This can be done by using CSS for generating graphics instead of images. In case CSS is not working the deal for you then you can opt for the traditional techniques of optimization. Formatting / Compressing images without compromising on visual quality is a good idea for image optimization.
HTTP requests to be minimized
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests make up more than 50% of the loading time of your web page. Whenever a browser searches (fetching from the web server) for files, pages, or pictures in regard to a respective website these HTTP requests are seen generated.
One way to minimize these HTTP requests is to amalgamate CSS files and JavaScript (JS) files into a single large file. Though it’s a challenging task (considering page-to-page variability) it has a great effect in reducing HTTP requests in the long run.
You can also opt for minimum images (only necessary ones) with optimization to bring down the HTTP requests and thus create a fast-loading website.
Cut on 404 error
A 404 error or you can say the bad request is the last thing you want your users to see when they click on the link of your website. A broken link or request that leads to no results causes such 404 or 410 errors.
Not only the first page of your website but all pages should be arranged in a manner so, as to avoid these errors. Imagine a situation where a visitor comes to your website and clicks on the ‘contact us’ link and the error 404 appears. Horrendous right, well you can avoid this scenario.
Since these errors are unavoidable you should immediately fix them as and when they occur (they would occur usually due to the changes, updates, or movement of your links). Google’s webmaster is an effective and efficient tool that would help you locate those broken links on your website. You can locate them timely and can fix them accordingly.
Cache
Browsing cache is the key to fast loading of your website. The fact that browser caching allows the contents (assets) on your web pages to be saved in the hard drive or temporary storage space. The local presence of the files on the system of users helps in loading the website quickly in subsequent times.
So, enabling caching is the key to performance optimization and effectiveness of your web pages.
Analyze
Analyzing the movement of visitors on your website is a key aspect of designing the website to optimize its performance. Knowing where most of the user activity is confined on your web page would help you to place your CTAs effectively in sync with the design of your website.
Google Analytics is a good tool for analyzing web traffic on your page and understanding the trends and patterns in it. Heat map analysis is another effective tool that gives insight into visitors’ movement on your website.
We hope by knowing your curiosity might have come to rest in regards to how website optimization can be achieved through effective web designing. If you got some valuable insights then it’s time for you to act on those and get the performance of your website enhanced and optimized.
Image source: BigStock
