Code Cutting To Improve Page Speed

I think we all know that Page Speed is important, and that there are multiple ways to achieve it.

This is a really interesting take from Ian Lurie of Portent on trimming code bloat to get a faster page speed score from Google’s tool.

It’s not the complete answer, but streamlined code is always worthwhile, providing it is scalable.

Read more in this extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 3rd November 2017.

#SEO #SEONews #PageSpeed

Key Issues Summary:

• Ian Lurie published an excellent write-up of his adventures in code cutting and trimming in his quest for more Page Speed.
• Essentially, it revolves around using Google Chrome’s Code Coverage report to remove the navel fluff of code that accumulates in all websites.
• Think unused CSS, extraneous JavaScript and general code bloat.
• I like the approach, and think it was a really interesting exercise, but I’m not sure it is truly scalable unless you are working at the template level. It’s part of the solution, rather than being the solution.

Key Actions To Take:

1. Read Ian’s post. It’s a good read, especially if you like a bit of geekery in your life.
2. Follow his instructions and be very, very careful in what you excise.
3. Once completed, revel in your masterly domination of The Code.
4. And then make your website, rather than a single web page, quicker by other means as well, like caching, using common resources, tweaking and improving your web server and hosting service. Doing that will yield greater benefits over a longer period.
5. Click here to contact me to discuss how to speed up your website.

Insights & Discussion:

Google’s fascination with Page Speed is good. Anything which speeds up surfing is an excellent thing to pursue.

But Google’s PageSpeed tool means that people focus on a single web page rather than a website and rather than selecting and executing upgrades which would have a more significant effect. People unfortunately believe that a number on Google’s Page Speed tool are the answers to their speed prayers, and they aren’t always.

Code should always be sparse. CSS should only be what you need. JavaScript should process no more than it needs to change a dynamic element. Wherever possible you should cache things over the internet for as long as possible.

But you should also make sure that your hosting and serving environment is top-notch. The better your environment, the better equipment your data gets routed through, the higher the priority your packets are given as they route through the TCP/IP algorithms which keep the internet pumping. Too often web sites underspend on their hosting, and that is critical to success.

Every time I’ve upgraded hosting properly, I’ve seen increases in traffic and revenue between 50% and 200%. Speed really isn’t to be sneezed at.

More Information:

• Google: PageSpeed Is Difficult
• Respect to Ian Lurie

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We recently released the super-exciting The State of SEO in mid-2017. Read it now.

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• Make your websites quick.
• Cut as much code as possible. Bloat is the antithesis of speed.
• Remember that the Page Speed tool is at the page level. Infrastructure improvements will speed your website up significantly.
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
• Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
• Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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