The speed of your website is not only a matter of user experience but also a ranking factor that has a direct effect on your bottom line. Fast loading sites get the thumbs up from Google’s algorithms while visitors leave pages that load in over three seconds. Even though plugins offer easy fixes, they tend to make your site heavier. Here are a few ways on how to increase your page speed in a traditional way: by using clean code and smart strategies.

Why Manual Optimization Beats Plugin Dependency

Each time you add a plugin, there is an increase in overhead. Every single one means more HTTP requests, database queries, and possible conflicts. When manually optimized, you have absolute control of your site’s speed and thus you are not updating with new changes that could slow your site down. Moreover, you will become much familiar with how your site actually works.

Compress and Optimize Your Images

It is common knowledge that images are the ones that make a webpage heavy the most. In accordance with that, before you make any image visible to the public, process it through TinyPNG or ImageOptim compression software. In line with this, if you want to make any image visible to the public, first run it through TinyPNG or ImageOptim compression software. If you want to keep JPEG files smaller than 100KB and PNG files under 50KB, you’ll have to keep checking the files. The way for lazily loading pictures is really very simple: just put the loading=”lazy” attribute to the img tags.

This means that images will be loaded by the browser only when they are about to be seen which in turn will result in a significant drop in the initial loading time. And it is very convenient because no extra coding is necessary as the majority of the modern browsers support this feature already.

Minimize HTTP Requests

Each file that your webpage loads is a different HTTP request. HTTP requests can be minimized by combining every CSS file into a single stylesheet and visualizing all your JavaScript files in one script. CSS sprites can be used to keep your images and show them by moving their positions around. Social media widget? That fancy font you bought? The thing is that each time you use one element, and visually it is not enough for you, one more HTTP request will be created. Identify only those elements that are at the very essence of your page and remove the rest

Leverage Browser Caching Through.htaccess

What you can do is put caching rules into your.htaccess to let the browsers know the time such a resource file will be stored. The next time a visitor comes back, they won’t have to download CSS, JavaScript, and images again as these files will be stored on their browsers. In the Outlook for the Year 2024, look at the position of files and the completeness of your collections Wenn 30 day minimum, if possible, one year.

Minify Your Code

Take out whitespaces, comments, and plus characters that might not be needed from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Tools that are available online like CSS Minifier and JavaScript Minifier can deal with this in a matter of seconds. The difference may seem insignificant   just a couple of kilobytes here and there   but these small savings add up over every page load.

Enable GZIP Compression

GZIP compression can reduce the size of voluminous files during transfer by as much as 70%. If you put compression rules into your server configuration, the browsers will be given quite light HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

The Bottom Line

Working with manual optimization entails an upfront additional effort but the result is significant: a site that loads quickly, higher positions in search, and increased conversions. First, deal with the major changes image optimization and reducing HTTP requests and then proceed with other methods. Your visitors and your search rankings will thank you.