How to Speed Up the Load Time of Your Website

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Measure and record the load time of the page to be optimized before commencing the process of making changes to reduce load time.

   Use tools such as SiteReportCard, Google PageSpeed, GTmetrix or Pingdom.  A screen shot of Pingdom's Website Speed Test is in the image above,  These resources will provide an analysis of where the slow load problems exist on the page tested.
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   Step 2: Understand your goal.

   For a number of webmasters who use simplified website building platforms there are a number of infrastructure areas which can be optimized for load time, but may not accessible to a "non-expert".  Here are three such recommendations a Google PageSpeed analysis may suggest optimizing:
   Leverage browser caching Enable compression Eliminate external render blocking Javascript and CSS in above the fold content There's no need to fret about what you can't do.
   
   Just focus on what is within your control. ,  Google informs these ads load faster.  , Remove external widgets unless they add to the user's experience. , Useful tools include getpaint.net, kraken.io, dynamicdrive.com, smush.it, all of which are free.
   
   It's a painstaking exercise especially for those with image rich sites, but well worth the effort. , Ask yourself, if the image adds to the user's experience and if not, ask why it should be there, taking up load time.  It's faster to load one image of 200KB than to load 10 images of 20 KB each, so take care to prune images to better the visitor experience and speed up load time. , This means reducing white space in CSS, JS and HTML code.
   
   For beginner webmasters, please take care or avoid this step if you do not understand code. , It's best to have the main article load firstly, then third party plugins.  Consider relocating social plugins below the fold and either removing or relocating widgets such as RSS signups, Translate and Search Boxes, if pressed for opportunities to optimize load time. ,
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   Step 3: Change your site's Adsense codes to the Asynchronous code.

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   Step 4: Prune Widgets.

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   Step 5: Resize all images.

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   Step 6: Decide which images can be removed from the page or article.

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   Step 7: Minify Code.

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   Step 8: Choose the Order of Loading  - Load time is increased when the search engine has to keep heading out to third party sites and return and keep doing this for plugins especially those located above the fold.

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   Step 9: Measure speed load time after the changes have been attended.

Detailed Guide

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