Hello my dear readers,

Modern site should be both fast and beautiful. Today I am going to share with you some hints that can help you improve your website performance.

1. When you want to create a hyperlink to a directory, always add a trailing slash (‘/’), otherwise your browser will have to do one more additional request to the server to find out that you are linking not to a file but to a directory.

2. If you update some pages very often, it makes sense to forbid browsers cache these pages. This is how it can be done: just add these meta-tags:

<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Expires” CONTENT=”Mon, 01 Jan 1990 1:00:00 GMT”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Pragma” CONTENT=”no-cache”>

3. Specify the width and height of EVERY image you insert into your web pages. This helps browser render your pages faster.
4. Use correct image format. Gif and PNG are ideal for logos and vector graphics; JPEG is designed for photos, so use it unly for photos. Five years ago Internet Explorer users experienced problems with PNG images, but not anymore, thus don’t be afraid of using it.

5. Combine all the little images you have into one single file (it’s usually called ‘CSS sprite’). This will help you save a few HTTP requests and your website will load much faster.

As you see, there are some very basic steps that can drastically improve your website performance.