How to improve the Speed of a Bootstrap Website

Recent studies conducted by expert digital marketers and website designers revealed that a major percent of internet users expects websites to load within a timeframe of just 100ms. So, if it takes more than 100ms for your business website to load, then most internet users will probably leave from your website. This is something most website owners wish to avoid, but have no clear idea on how to achieve this.

What’s more alarming is that Google and several other search engines have already noticed this trend. In fact, several professional online marketers claim that the speed of the website is one of the critical factors affects the search engine rank of the same site. Moreover, in an official statement, Google advised website designers and owners to make their website mobile-friendly, as it will be vital if they want to gain a higher rank for their sites.

Things to Note

Bootstrap is one of the most popular open-source frameworks out there. This framework is used by millions of users from all over the world to build websites. However, only a few website designers are aware that the Bootstrap framework is heavily criticized by many experts for adding unwanted bloat to websites.

So, if you are incorporating this framework, then it is best to pay a little bit extra attention to page speed. Below are some of the simple yet effective tips that will help you to considerably improve the speed of your Bootstrap website.

Settle Only for the Source

One of the best things about the latest version of the Bootstrap framework is that it enables users to select parts of the framework and then include only them into your project. However, the issue with this is that the precompiled files of Bootstrap may often contain files that you might not even need.

You need to remember the fact that internet browsers will have to download and process all these files. This might impact the performance of your website. Fortunately, you will be able to avoid such hassles by only downloading the Bootstrap source code for your web design project.

Keep Track of Image File Size

If there are plenty of images, audios, or videos in your website, then you must optimize these files. If you fail to do this, then it will take a lot more than 100ms for your website to load. This evidently proves the fact that optimizing the visual and audio file in your website is crucial if you want your website to perform flawless and offer a fine experience to site visitors.

When you are uploading images to your website, you must make sure that they are of the right image format. In addition to that, website designers and developers should incorporate the use of handy tools that will help them to reduce the size of images without affecting their quality or appeal.

Minify CSS and JavaScript

Another simple yet brilliant technique that can be used to improve the speed of a Bootstrap website is to considerably reduce the amount of HTTP requests that a site is making for rendering the content. Each and every trip that the website takes to the server will have a negative impact on the user experience.

However, removing white space and comments (Minifying) and combining the JavaScript files together will help you to limit the number of HTTP requests that a website is making. This practise is followed by thousands of web designers and developers from all over the world to speed up their website.

Use Lean JavaScript and CSS

Several website designers especially the ones who are new to the world of web designing often fail to realize the fact that each and every character that you include in your code will increase the overall weight of the entire web page. It is true that writing simple and clean JavaScript and CSS code is not an easy task, but it is something you should try to achieve.

You also need to pay attention to the fact that eliminating the duplicate code, unused selectors, and overly-nested rules will also help you to improve the speed of your Bootstrap websites. However, you could also incorporate the use of tools to do the above-mentioned tasks.

Download Only the Packages You Need

It is okay to use the precompiled download packages of the Bootstrap framework, but you need to think thoroughly before deciding which one of the parts in the package you really need. The download folder of the Bootstrap framework has components from both the JavaScript and CSS library. Apart from that, there will also be plenty of individual CSS files too.

Website designers who need a simple CSS reset should use only bootstrap-reboot.min.css. On the other hand, individuals who are looking to make use of a simple and flexible grid system should choose bootstrap-grid.min.css. The above-statements evidently claim that you do not need to download the entire Bootstrap framework for your web design project.

Conclusion

It is significant to realize that fast-rendering websites are capable of offering a great user experience to your existing customers and potential clients. This is particularly important when you are optimizing your website for the ones who access the site through smartphones and mobile devices. So, you should keep these things in mind when you are designing a new website.