Introduction
Server response time is an important factor in website performance. It affects the user experience, search engine rankings, and overall website performance. If your server response time is too slow, it can lead to a poor user experience, lower search engine rankings, and decreased website performance. Fortunately, there are several ways to reduce server response time and improve website performance. In this article, we will discuss 7 ways to reduce server response time and improve website performance.
7 Ways to Reduce Server Response Time
1. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN is a network of servers located around the world that can deliver content to users faster by caching static content such as images, videos, and JavaScript files.
2. Optimize Your Database: Database optimization can help reduce server response time by reducing the amount of time it takes to query and retrieve data from the database.
3. Minimize HTTP Requests: Reducing the number of HTTP requests can help reduce server response time by reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred between the server and the client.
4. Enable Caching: Caching can help reduce server response time by storing frequently requested data in memory so that it can be quickly retrieved when needed.
5. Use a Faster Web Server: Using a faster web server such as Nginx or Apache can help reduce server response time by reducing the amount of time it takes to process requests.
6. Optimize Your Code: Optimizing your code can help reduce server response time by reducing the amount of time it takes to execute the code.
7. Use a Performance Monitoring Tool: Performance monitoring tools can help identify bottlenecks in your code and help you optimize your code to reduce server response time.
Introduction
Reducing server response time should be a primary goal of website owners and SEO experts.
Investing resources in creating a website is a waste of time if it loads slow and people abandon your site. The first couple of seconds determine whether a customer stays on your page or bounces to a competitor.
53% of mobile site visits leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. (Source: Think With Google)
In this article, learn how to reduce server response time with seven actionable tips.
What is Server Response Time?
Server response time is the time that passes between a client requesting a page in a browser and a server responding to that request. It is measured by TTFB (Time to First Byte). TTFB is how many milliseconds it takes to receive the first byte of the page after sending an HTTP request.
Why is Server Response Time Important?
The consequence of a slow website can be damaging for business. Your website’s loading time significantly affects user experience.
Research reveals that over 40% of web users abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Also, the more time it needs to load, the worse it ranks on the search engine result page (SERP).
Response time influences:
- User Experience (UX)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Improving search engine optimization, and user experience are critical strategies in digital marketing. This is a good enough reason for you to check what your server response time is and how to improve it.
Website Speed and SEO
Google announced that the loading speed of a page is a key ranking factor in 2019. The company even created PageSpeed Insights, a tool to enhance website performance. The metric is simple: the better the TTFB, the higher the ranking on Google.
Loading Speed Impacts UX
Brand reputation relies on the user experience their website provides.
With slow loading, you risk visitors losing patience and navigating away to a competitor’s page. It is likely that one occasion of poor response may lead to a visitor never coming back to your website. A fast website is the cornerstone of satisfying user experience.
What is a Good Server Response Time?
Google recommends you aim for a response time lower than 200 milliseconds. A 100ms TTFB is ideal, and everything over 500ms is an issue. It is important this time is consistent for all users. It should not vary depending on the users’ geographical positions.
Google classifies websites into three groups based on the speed score they achieve:
- Fast (90-100)
- Average (50-89)
- Slow (0-49)
According to Google’s statistics, half of the sites online (50%) are slow, and only 10% are fast. Meaning 40% of websites ranked average, leaving a lot of room for improvement.
How to Improve Server Response Time
Here are seven easy ways to reduce the server response time for your website.
1. Use Reliable and Fast Web Hosting
Make sure that your hosting provider caters to the needs of your online customers.
It is essential to maintain fast server response times that do not fluctuate. To achieve that, it is necessary to invest in a high-performance server. Free web hosting, inadequate hosting services with minimal or no support, and shared resources all contribute to slower servers.
Data centers can offer a wide variety of hosting services and server-managed services. PhoenixNAP is one example of a data center with hosting servers that ensure performance, security, and high availability.
2. Use a CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) is a framework of distributed networks of proxy servers and their data centers. They are geographically spread out to provide content to users as fast as possible.
A global audience requires a provider who has distributed its assets to various nodes around the globe. This ensures all web page visitors enjoy fast response times.
A hosting server far from the target audience causes slow web page load times.
To avoid such an issue, you need to know your target audience before deciding on a hosting provider. This will help you choose a data center that is nearest to that audience. By minimizing the distance between your hosting servers and your visitors, you can improve latency issues. As a result, this reduces the overall response times.
3. Optimize Databases
The response speed is dependent on database optimization. As you first set up a website, the database responds quickly to queries. As time passes, the database accumulates information. The compiling results in massive amounts of data stored.
There are ways of optimizing the database to speed up your website. If you are using WordPress, the first step is to identify slow queries with a query checker. Once you find the lagging ones, work on optimization. Change the group to objects, use indexes, or other solutions appropriate for the issues at hand.
4. Keep WordPress Lightweight
WordPress allows you to create beautiful websites easily. It has appealing themes and numerous plugins for customizing. However, be careful not to overload your theme as it can slow down response time.
If you are using a WP template, try to stick to simple, lightweight ones and avoid adding too many plugins.
Use a webpage monitoring tool and examine which plugins are slowing your webpage down. Delete any unused plugins and deactivate ones that use up CPU resources.
5. Monitor PHP Usage
The more processes a server has to undertake to serve a page to a visitor, the slower it will be. If you are running a PHP script, ensure it is not using up vital resources fulfilling unnecessary tasks.
Make sure PHP is updated. Many hosting companies do not do PHP updates automatically. A website still running on PHP 5 will have a slower response time than one running on PHP 7.
See which version you have with the PHP Compatibility Checker plugin. If necessary, upgrade to a newer version through cPanel or by contacting your hosting provider.
6. Configure Caching
Caching ensures fast delivery to visitors. Without caching, a browser requests assets from the server each time a page loads instead of accessing them from a local or intermediary cache.
There are WordPress plugins that enable storing files locally on a user’s computer. The files are then reused during future visits. This practice is called caching. It speeds up loading time and ensures better UX.
7. Minify Scripts
Minification is reducing the size of the code. You minify by removing redundant and long variables, unwanted characters, and comments.
External files, JavaScript, and CSS make up a web page and influence how fast it is served. The practice of minifying and compressing scripts is a popular solution when dealing with files. It keeps large amounts of data available but does not let the quantity compromise performance.
Distribute JS and CSS files as external or internal, based on their size and importance. Improve load time by placing tiny files internally, as part of the HTML file. Finally, make ambiguous files easier to cache by keeping them external.
Bonus Tip: Use the “Connection: Keep-Alive” HTTP header. It enables the “keep alive method,” allowing HTTP to carry multiple files at a time. By transferring several types of files (CSS, JS, images, etc.) at the same time, you can improve how fast content is served to users.
Conclusion
One of the most crucial website performance metrics is server response time. Implement the suggestions mentioned in this article and easily improve your server speed today!
7 Ways to Reduce Server Response Time
Server response time is an important factor in website performance. A slow server response time can lead to poor user experience, decreased search engine rankings, and lost sales. Here are 7 ways to reduce server response time and improve website performance.
1. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers located around the world that deliver web content to users based on their geographic location. By using a CDN, you can reduce the distance between the server and the user, resulting in faster response times.
2. Optimize Your Database
Your database is one of the most important components of your website. If your database is not optimized, it can lead to slow response times. To optimize your database, you should regularly run maintenance tasks such as indexing, defragmentation, and query optimization.
3. Use Caching
Caching is a technique used to store frequently accessed data in memory so that it can be quickly retrieved. By using caching, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to retrieve data from the server, resulting in faster response times.
4. Minimize HTTP Requests
Every time a user visits your website, the browser sends an HTTP request to the server. The more requests the browser has to make, the longer it will take for the page to load. To reduce HTTP requests, you should minimize the number of files your website uses and combine multiple files into one.
5. Use a Faster Web Server
If your web server is slow, it can significantly impact your website’s performance. To reduce server response time, you should consider switching to a faster web server such as Nginx or Apache.
6. Optimize Your Code
If your website’s code is not optimized, it can lead to slow response times. To optimize your code, you should minify your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and use compression techniques such as Gzip.
7. Monitor Your Server Performance
Monitoring your server performance is essential for ensuring your website is running optimally. You should use a monitoring tool to track your server’s performance and identify any issues that may be causing slow response times.
