10 Ways to Improve Your Web Page Performance
There are a million and one ways to boost your website’s performance. The methods vary and some are more involved than others. The three main areas that you can work on are: hardware (your web server), server-side scripting optimization (PHP, Python, Java), and front-end performance (the meat of the web page).
This article primarily focuses on front-end performance since it’s the easiest to work on and provides you the most bang for your buck.
Why focus on front-end performance?
The front-end (i.e. your HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images) is the most accessible part of your website. If you’re on a shared web hosting plan, you might not have root (or root-like) access to the server and therefore can’t tweak and adjust server settings. And even if you do have the right permissions, web server and database engineering require specialized knowledge to give you any immediate benefits.
It’s also cheap. Most of the front-end optimization discussed can be done at no other cost but your time. Not only is it inexpensive, but it’s the best use of your time because front-end performance is responsible for a very large part of a website’s response time.
With this in mind, here are a few simple ways to improve the speed of your website.
1. Profile your web pages to find the culprits.
10 Ways to Cut Down Web Development Time
In today’s development environment: faster is better.
Present-day buzzwords and buzz terms like "rapid application development", "Agile", and "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML" (we can’t even wait for web pages reload anymore) gives you an insight of the fast-paced world we live in.
But getting things done rapidly doesn’t mean working harder – just working smarter. In this article, you’ll find 10 general, time-saving tips to cut down on your development time.
1. Use frameworks
20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer
As a web developer, if you’re to be successful, you have to have a constant yearning for learning new things. In an industry that evolves rapidly, you’ve got to keep up or you risk being obsolete and outdated. Keeping up with trends, weeding out the fads, and adopting new techniques to your web-building arsenal is an essential part of being a web developer.
I spend (literally) most of the day in front of the computer and even in my spare time, I choose to read, learn, and keep up with web technology news. This leads to a massive collection of bookmarked links, but through the years, there are only a handful of websites that I frequent.
I’d like to share 20 websites that have broadened my knowledge, expanded my skill set, and improved the quality and efficiency of my web development projects. Most of these (hopefully) you’ve already encountered, but if you come out with just one or two links you’ve never heard of or you end up bookmarking a link or two, I would’ve accomplished my goal.
9 Practical Ways to Enhance your Web Development Using the Firefox Web Developer Extension
Whether you’re a front-end graphics designer or a back-end web programmer, if you’ve worked long enough in the field of creating web-based solutions, you’ve no doubt heard about an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser called (simply enough) the Web Developer extension. If you have no clue what I’m talking about, here’s a brief overview from Webs Tips to get you familiarized with this wonderful tool.
This article lists some practical, everyday uses of the Web Developer extension to help improve your web-building methods. I’ve tried to stay away from the more common and basic uses of the Web Developer extension like troubleshooting layout issues with the Information > Display Div Order option because I feel these have been discussed quite enough in other places. New users, don’t run away quite yet, I think this guide will help you get a rapid jump start into applying this tool into your daily development routine. continue reading »
