Strategic Business Guide: Securing and Speeding Up Your Website
Most people will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Furthermore, 80% of users would not visit a site again if they were not satisfied with its opening speed on the first visit. A single extra second in loading time reduces conversion by 11%.
How about website security? Well, even if your website has a stupendous loading speed, but security-wise, it has serious problems – you will lose customers quicker than you gain new ones.
The better a website’s security, the higher the conversion. Moreover, website loading speed and security should be equally good for both desktop and mobile devices. 95% of smartphone and tablet users expect the mobile version of the site to load as fast as on a PC.
Let’s not waste any more of your attention and get straight into business: exploring what you can start doing today to speed up and secure your website.
Speeding Up Your Website
The world we live in is so saturated with information that we literally have no time to read anything new. Some say that the average attention span is only 3 seconds; others claim it’s no more than 1 second. Either way, the speed of online applications is precious.
The following tweaks and website configurations will allow you to significantly increase the responsiveness and speed of your website.
Method 1. JavaScript Goes Last
Let the browser load the page with content first and then the JavaScript files. To make that happen, place the JS files at the bottom of the page. However, it is important not to overdo it.
For example, your site contains many interactive features, which is why some files weigh hundreds of kilobytes. Keeping users waiting for all your files to load at once is not smart.
In addition, parallel loading is blocked by external JS files. By this time, you might be wondering: “How can I speed up a website loading in this case?”
HTTP/1.1 data specifies that browsers should simultaneously download a maximum of 2-page components from one host. It turns out that if the images for the site are located on different hosts, you enable more than two parallel downloads.
Method 2. Loading JavaScript Libraries Using CDN
CDN or Content Delivery Network is a set of web servers specially located far from each other to achieve the highest content loading speed. If your website has a large JavaScript framework, you should use CDN best practices to connect it. This is a simple but effective way how to speed up its loading time.
It’s also a good idea to utilize CDN in your SEO strategy to improve website performance for users worldwide, aiding your local SEO optimization efforts. CDN also provides enhanced security against DDoS attacks, bots, and other cyber threats.
Method 3. Reducing the Number of HTTP Requests
80% of the download is associated with loading components: images, scripts, flash, CSS, etc. By reducing the number of components, you reduce the number of HTTP requests to the server.
Although, how can you speed up a website without affecting its appearance? There are several ways:
- Combine several files into one.
- Using CSS sprites (combined images containing several small images).
- Using Inline images (images embedded into the page using the data URL scheme).
Method 4. Optimizing Images
Finally, consider optimizing your images by choosing one of the following formats:
- GIF – suitable for images with a few colors.
- JPEG – suitable for bright, detailed images.
- PNG – choose this format if you need a high-quality image with transparency.
You can optimize images using dedicated programs, e.g., Punypng, Jpegmini, and others.
Protecting Your Website
Website security requires structured approaches. You can achieve sustainable results by building your security around two key areas:
- Server. Possible security measures: changing passwords, checking incoming data, making backups, setting up restrictions, etc.).
- CMS. Security measures: using reliable scripts and plugins, SSL certificate, and running regular updates.
Area 1: Protect the Server
1. Choose secure hosting
Position your website on a secure server. Your neighbors are one of the vulnerabilities, so it is important to choose a reliable licensed host provider that does not host questionable content.
2. Regularly change the administrator’s password
Criteria for a strong password:
- Length of at least 30 characters;
- Complex alphanumeric set;
- Not previously used;
- Does not contain personal information.
Remember that passwords cannot be shared via email clients or messenger chats. For risk-free handling and storage on your computer, it is better to use special programs, such as KeePass Password Safe.
3. Monitor incoming data
Securing your website reliably requires you to check all incoming information. A firewall (WAF – web application firewall), which works as a filter between the website and incoming traffic, will handle this. It scans data and blocks malicious code, leaving only safe requests.
Firewalls can work at the DNS level (through a proxy server), client-server, or CMS plugin. The first type is considered the most secure.
For WordPress sites, which are most often attacked through data entry forms, use Wordfence Security, Sucuri Security or iThemes Security.
Area 2: Protect Your Content Management System (CMS)
1. Install only trusted plugins
No matter how protected your server is, if you use insecure plugins, all your safety measures can go to waste. Unreliable plugins introduce dangerous vulnerabilities into your CMS protection. Through them, hackers can gain full access to the website’s engine.
Utilizing trusted plugins will support your on-site and off-site SEO strategies, providing more possibilities for improving your website’s search engine visibility and authority.
Plugins increase the security of your website as a whole or protect individual components of your website management system. In securing your website, you can use several modules to solve different problems.
2. Don’t miss updates
CMS needs to be regularly updated, as developers continuously find “weak” spots and fix them. Using old engine versions exposes your site to risk.
Tip: always make a full backup before updating.
Final Recommendations
Any security measures will go to waste unless you care about the security of your personal computer.
What can you practically do to strengthen the security of your personal computer and smartphone?
The solution that’s available on the surface is antivirus software. A good antivirus is the first and best protection for the computer (or smartphone) through which you access your server.
What else? Disable the automatic connection to networks. Crooks often create fake Wi-Fi networks. Of course, if you are attentive, you will choose the right one from the list of available networks.
However, if you activate the automatic connection option, you may not notice how your device connects to the scammers’ Wi-Fi. Disable this setting now!
Last but not least, be careful when clicking on links. If you receive an email about the need to change your account password by clicking on a link, take it with a big grain of salt. Carefully study the sender’s address, and if there are any suspicions, block and delete the email.
It’s not an aggregation to say that your website security starts with your own digital security. So, be a role model and show the rest of your team the solutions we discussed in this article.
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