Website performance is a critical aspect of success for any business. The performance of a website can directly impact user engagement, search engine rankings, and ultimately, revenue. But with so many factors that can affect website performance, it’s often unclear who is responsible for ensuring that a website is optimized for speed and reliability.
There is no single entity or individual responsible for a website’s performance. Rather, website performance is influenced by a combination of factors, including the website’s designer, developer, hosting provider, and content creator.
In this article, we’ll explore the various key players involved in website performance and their respective roles. Let’s dive in!
Web Designers and Developers
Web designers and developers have a massive influence on website performance, as they are responsible for creating the website’s design, structure, and functionality. Poor design and coding can have a significant impact on website performance, resulting in slow page load times, broken links, and other issues that can make the user experience undesirable.
To ensure the best website performance, web designers and developers must prioritize the following elements:
Website Designer
Cluttered layouts, large image files, and complex navigation structures can slow down a website, resulting in longer page load times and decreased user engagement. To optimize website design for performance, designers must focus on simplicity and clarity, avoiding unnecessary elements that can slow down page load times.
It’s easy for a designer to get carried away and add elements that are not needed on the website like carousels, animations and so on, all of these elements usually heavily rely on Javascript to run. The more fancy features on a website the larger the file sizes and the longer it takes to load.
Before beginning a project make sure there is a clear brief on what is needed listing the goals of the website. If SEO is important then definitely hold back on the fancy animations.
Website Developer
The code used to create a website can also easily blow out of proportion and have a significant impact on website performance. Poorly written code can result in slow page load times, broken links, and other issues that can negatively impact user engagement. To optimize website coding for performance, developers must prioritize efficient code that minimizes HTTP requests and maximizes browser caching.
There are many more other aspects to creating an optimized website that a website developer should be aware of like the following:
- Reducing the Number of HTTP Requests i.e not having too many unnecessary images, icons and other assests
- Switching to HTTP/2, this is so that your website content downloads simultaneously instead of one by one
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) …Psst! I do this using Cloudflare
- Write Mobile-First code as 55% of your users are on a mobile device
- Minimize Time to First Byte
- Choose the right hosting service plan and provider
- Implement Gzip Compression
- Minify and Combine CSS, JavaScript, and HTML Files
- Load JavaScript asynchronously
- Consider using Prefetch, Preconnect, and Prerender Techniques
- Reduce the number of plugins
- Use Website Caching
All of this can easily be checked right now using Google’s Light House developer tool.
Hosting Providers
Hosting providers play a critical role in website performance, as they are responsible for providing the server infrastructure that hosts the website. The server hardware, software, and configuration can all have a significant impact on website performance, with poorly configured servers resulting in slow page load times, frequent downtime, and other issues.
The hardware used to host a website can also have a significant impact on website performance. Slow processors, insufficient RAM, and other hardware limitations can result in slow page load times and other issues.
The software used to run a server should be taken into account as well many hosting providers don’t keep their servers up to date. Outdated or poorly configured server software can result in slow page load times, frequent downtime, and other issues that can negatively impact user engagement.
The configuration of a server is another aspect to consider. To optimize server configuration for performance, hosting providers must prioritize efficient resource allocation, proper caching, and other performance optimization techniques.
All of these elements need to be taken into consideration for choosing a hosting provider that meets your needs and then there is how much traffic you plan on handling, how much space you need, and the list goes on…
I have done the research and have found that Cloudways is a great place to get started, you don’t have to worry if they’re using the best hardware, or software or how much traffic your website will need you can pay as you go instead of being committed to one pricing plan and then hit with a surprise bill when your traffic exceeds that pricing plan.
Cloudways is definitely a high-performance hosting provider at an affordable price. Get started today and get $25 Free Hosting Credits when you sign up …yes this is an affiliate but, we only promote what we use. Get in touch if you would like me to handle your Cloudways hosting for you.
Content Creators
Content creators should ensure that the content on a website is optimized for both search engines and user engagement. While the design development and hosting provider can impact website performance, high-quality content is ultimately what keeps users engaged and returning to a website.
Website content optimized for performance must prioritize the following elements:
Content Quality
High-quality content is essential for website performance. Content that is poorly written lacks depth or originality, or is not relevant to the website’s audience can result in high bounce rates and decreased user engagement.
Content creators should focus on creating valuable content that is engaging, informative, and useful to the website’s audience. You probably have heard that content is king so your website copy is important to keep your audience engaged which in turn shows Google that you have valuable content and therefore, ranking you higher on the search engine results page.
Content Optimization
Content creators must also optimize their content for search engines and user engagement. This includes using relevant keywords, writing clear and concise headlines and subheadings, and using high-quality images and other media to enhance the user experience.
Content should be properly formatted for easy readability, with short paragraphs and bulleted or numbered lists where appropriate.
Basically, you want to create valuable content that is easy to digest. Nobody wants to read an endless block of text.
Content Updates
Regularly updating website content is also essential for website performance. Outdated or stale content can result in decreased user engagement and lower search engine rankings. Content creators should keep updating and refreshing website content regularly to keep users engaged and ensure that search engines continue to index the website’s content.
When trying to keep your content fresh and up to date it can be hard to know what to post next. this is where your analytics comes into play. see what your visitors are coming to your website for and what gaps are in your content.
Need help checking your website’s performance? Roast My Website, is a free website audit that comes with a checklist of improvements saving you countless hours! Get started today!
