Helen Writings
Since Google’s recent announcement that web page load times are now a ranking factor web designers and developers have been required to pay additional attention to site performance considerations. Here are just a handful of factors that todays web developers need to keep in mind.
Most web pages are made up of a collection of elements including javascript files, CSS, images and database delivered content. Minimising the number of elements and therefore the number of HTTP requests necessary to render a page is crucial for fast page load times.
Around 80% of the end user’s response time is consumed in waiting for all of the page elements to download. This waiting time is know to cause visitors to leave an ecommerce site and maybe move on to a faster loading competitor. This time can be reduced by using a content delivery network to serve up the static content, such as javascript and css files. A content delivery network is basically a collection of servers setup in various geographic locations to efficiently deliver content to users.
As web designs become increasing complex, richer and more engaging to the end user they need an ever increasing number of components in order to render, such as Flash and javascript. When a site is first visited a number of HTTP requests will be made to download all of these elements. If these are cached then there is less to download on a subsequent visit and this can be controlled using the ‘Expires’ header. This is commonly used for images but can be effectively used for all components including Flash and stylesheets.
Compression, perhaps using GZIP, is another technique that should be in every web developers speed optimisation arsenal. GZIP is one of the most popular compression tools, supported by most browsers, it can reduce the size of many elements by as much as 70%.
There are lots of additional techniques that are both good for search engine optimisation of web pages but will enhance the users experience. For example: stylesheets should be located at the top of pages and scripts at the bottom; both javascript and CSS files should be minified; and javascript and CSS should be in external files; also, reducing the number of DNS lookups and redirects is always a good idea. Good luck.
Tags: google, SEO, Web Design, web development
Posted in Web Design · July 6th, 2010 · Comments (0)
SEO is massive and many businesses both old and new are using SEO services to boost the impact of their business.
Even though this is no directly about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) you can see that many companies utilise this form of business promotion.
From a Web Designers point of view this means that you will want to stay up to date with the latest changes in the SEO world. Like with many industries your competitors may already be ahead of the game but if you are a freelance worker or small company you should have the flexibility to catch up with them. If you can stay ahead of the web design crowd by having some SEO knowledge then you will be much more likely to attract new business.
By using some standard SEO tactics you will be able to have your website designs be found more easily by others. Using the following steps you can better optimise your web designs for the search engines
1. Validate your code to W3C standards for both CSS and XHTML. This will assist search engines when they come to your website. An added bonus of this is that you will now be able to submit you website to some of the CSS design galleries which will create exposure for you client and your own design skills.
2. Having a fast website is of particular importance nowadays as we are creating more media rich web designs. On top of this the speed of a website has now become a ranking factor in Google. Taking the extra steps such as compressing images, GZiping text and combining CSS as well as JavaScript files will all help to speed up the website you are working on.
3. Doing some keyword research using Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool will provide you with the most commonly searched words in your market area. Taking these keywords and using them in the title tags of your pages will make your website appear more relevant and increase its visibility in the search engines. On top of this it will be clear to both users and search engines what market you clients website is in.
Tags: internet marketing, search engine optimisation, SEO, Web Design
Posted in SEO · July 6th, 2010 · Comments (0)