There is a lot of competition for Web traffic over the Internet since you will be competing with companies offering similar products or services from around the world. It is therefore important that you design a website that gives you an edge over your competitors. One way of doing this is through website speed optimization. As the term suggests, website speed optimization (or SEO speed optimization) is the process of increasing the page speed of a website. Although Web page speed is not a major factor is determining ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), Google imposes a speed penalty for slow page speed and you should therefore strive for high speeds. Slow Web page speed also drives away impatient Web surfers.
There are several tips that will help you achieve Web page optimization. You should concentrate your SEO speed optimization efforts on front-end optimization and on optimizing for the browser. The front-end contains HTML code, CSS code, image files, and JavaScript code. You could achieve page speed optimization on the front-end by limiting the use of optional media files such as .mov, .mp3, and .swf files.
To achieve front-end website speed optimization, avoid HTML errors by doing W3C Validation, delete all comments from HTML documents, do not use CSS expressions, avoid using tables in your Web design, avoid inline styles, and avoid the use of inline JavaScript. Other tips for front-end Web speed optimization are removing unused CSS and JavaScript, combine external CSS and JavaScript, and using CSS Sprites for reduced download images. For Web page optimization, try minifying combined CSS and JavaScript, and using such tools as Yahoo SmushIt to optimize the size of image files. Other front-end page speed optimization methods are serving static content (JavaScript/CSS/image files) from cookie-less domains and parallelize downloads across different hostnames.
To achieve server-side Web speed optimization, do browser caching and server-side compression. For website speed optimization, enable the compression of both mod_gzip and mod_deflate if you use Apache web servers. You could also leverage the browser caching (and mod_expires if you use Apache web servers for SEO speed optimization.
For Web speed optimization, cut on DNS lookups, avoid redirects as much as possible, remove scripts appearing more than once, configure eTags, make your site AJAX cacheable, and put all scripts at the bottom of your Web page. Other effective Web speed optimization methods are making only a few HTTP requests, using content delivery networks, using as few widgets as possible (or replacing script-based widgets with HTML-based widgets) and stopping the support for IE6.
There are several tools that you could use of SEO speed optimization. Keep track of the Web speed optimization if you want success. Combine Web speed optimization with other SEO techniques for the best results. Web speed optimization should be done on a regular basis. Consider what successful competitors are doing in terms of page speed optimization. You should generate a strategy and stick to it as much as possible for success in page speed optimization.
Consider enlisting the services of a Web page speed service to help you with Web page optimization. A Web page speed service has personnel with the training, experience and tools necessary to do effective Web speed optimization. Hiring a Web page speed service saves you money since it means you do not need to hire an in-house IT team for optimization of Web page speed. It also gives you unparalleled convenience and enables you to concentrate in running your business. A good Web page speed service will also offer other SEO service in addition to the Web page optimization service.