A couple of weeks ago Google announced that they were going to start considering site speed as a search engine ranking factor. That’s the second most important reason to have a fast website. The top reason is showing your visitors the information they want fast so they don’t leave your website.

These are 10 things you can do to speed up your site.

1. Use External CSS and Script Files
   Don’t include CSS or JavaScript code in your HTML documents. Create separate files and call out to them when necessary.
2. Use DIVs for Layout
   Avoid using tables.
3. More Is Less
   Remove elements you don’t really need.
4. Optimize Your Images
   Use this software to reduce the size of your images.
5. Don’t Use Images to Display Text
   With CSS styles you can make text look pretty much any way you want.
6. Use Clean Code
   Get rid of unnecessary code.
7. Use Trailing Slashes When Linking to Directories
   If you have your blog in a folder called “blog”, link to www.yoursite.com/blog/ (with a trailing slash at the end) as opposed to www.yoursite.com/blog.
8. Use the Height and Width Tags
   Don’t forget to use these tags for images and other elements.
9. Avoid the Excessive Use of Flash
   Flash animations can really slow your website down; avoid them if possible.
   
10. Speed Up Your WordPress Site
    If you have a WordPress site, use the WP Super Cache plugin.

Author: Zeke Camusio

Zeke Camusio is a serial entrepreneur, marketing speaker, author of The Internet Marketing Bible and CEO of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet marketing agency based out of Portland, Oregon.

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3 Responses

1. 

   1

   Kevin 
   

   Zeke,
   You forgot, dont use Flash for your home page as search engines look for content – the MOST important. There are still many sites out there with a Flash home page. Perhaps because they think that they have a large enough customer base??
   Kevin

2. 

   2

   Jean Yates 
   

   Very useful, I have lots of work ahead of me.

3. 

   3

   Khursheed Alam 
   

   very useful info…. I’m just keep working now on mysite to improve the speed of my website using these tips… Thanks Zeke