h4x3d.com » traffic http://h4x3d.com online portfolio of Julian Klewes Thu, 24 May 2012 18:50:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 How to preserve bandwidth and speed up your site http://h4x3d.com/how-to-preserve-bandwidth-and-speed-up-your-site/ http://h4x3d.com/how-to-preserve-bandwidth-and-speed-up-your-site/#comments Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:25:34 +0000 jez http://www.h4x3d.com/how-to-preserve-bandwidth-and-speed-up-your-site/ There are several ways of preserving bandwidth when you are running near your bandwidth quota:
For those of you who have not bandwidth limit per month, read this article as well, because I am going to tell you how to speed up your pages big style

Different approaches can be used to increase the time your website is displayed on your users computers.
You can measure the time it takes for your page to load with Firebug, an extension for Firefox. Once downloaded, installed, Firefox restarted (use the brain hack to keep open Tabs), you will find a small icon in the lower right area of your browser. Click enable, if it asks, then you can start viewing your page using the “Net” -tab (all) of Firebug. It will tell you how long the page took for loading. You will be surprised by the wide spectrum of details you will get to know about your website. E.g. using fat script libraries such as (full) scriptaculous or prototype take quite some time to load. Often whole libraries are included for effects that only need a handful of functions (lightbox!). More under a.4 later on.

a. reduce the over-all size of files/data that will be transfered when accessing your site


   a.1 images (jpg/png/gif)
   a.2 markup (php/html/css)
   a.3 stylecheets (css)
   a.4 javascript (js)
   a.4.1 overview of different lightweight javascript libraries/frameworks
   a.5 general (plugins, temporarily removing 'fat files')

a.1 Save bandwidth and optimize speed reducing images (jpg/png/gif)

Many websites use a high amounts of images, and there is nothing bad about it,
as long as a suitable compression is used. There is a difference between images compressed with jpg (jpeg), png and gif.
While jpg is great for images that feature loads of different colours, gradients and generally speaking pictures (photos), png and gif make more sense if an image does only consist of few different colours (max. 256 for good results). Gif images have to be used if you are going for transparent or semi transparent images. PNG can be transparent as well, but there are issues with the Internet Explorer, so I’d not recommend using png for transparent images. A jpg compression of 60 is often far enough, no need to go by even higher, because most of your users will most likely not see any difference. The difference file size concerned is massive.
You can easily safe some kilobytes there. REMEMBER: less kb to download = faster display of site. Safing photos in gif or png file format makes them ugly and big, so stick to jpg.

a.2 Save bandwidth and optimize speed using valid markup (php/html/css)

While this seems to be hard for many designers and programmers, one should try to produce valid markup.
Valid markup displays faster on many computers. Don’t over comment your source on websites.
It might be a good idea to keep local commented copies of your files, but in the web that’s only resource and thus speed hogging.

I’d recommend this online HTML tidy program for checking your markup, as well as the official w3c markup validation service [For CSS]
A great online tool to strip comments from your code (html/js) is memtronic’s packer
as well as dean edward’s packer.

a.3 Save bandwidth and optimize speed using compressed CSS

Compressed CSS is loaded like ordinary CSS, but simply faster. REMEMBER: less filesize = less load time of page
If your pages’ CSS is loaded faster, the site is earlier displayed on your visitors’ PC. He/she is then more likely to not leave your page in the first 10 seconds if he/she sees the content. It is essential to aim for the below 10 seconds (check the time your users remain on your website with Google analytics). There are some CSS compressors that work and others that proclaim they work, but don’t. Here are three, that definately work more or less depending on the complexity of coding.

CSS compressors
Flump cake css optimiser
icey’s css compressor
css formatter and optimser

a.4 Save bandwidth and optimize speed using compressed js

Many WordPress scripts want you to include big and fat javascript on your blog. Usually those can be compressed, downsized and optimized. I mentioned two compressors before: memtronic’s packer
and dean edward’s packer.
A by far even better compressor is dojo shrinksafe.
You can use these compressors to remove descriptive lines, comments and examples from the source. Usually compressed files will still work. If they don’t, use another option or different compressor. Be sure to compress valid js markup only.

a.4.1 Overview of javascript libraries and compress JS

So basically we all know scriptaculous and prototype. Some also know mootools (and moo.fx), but my personal #1 is byte.fx with an overall size of 3kb.
Prototype and scriptaculous can be compressed to some extent, Steve Kallestad did that and offers these compressed files on his site:

The downloads are available at:

Be sure to check them locally before you take these versions for an online test-walk!

a.5 Save bandwidth and optimize speed deactivating or tweaking plugins

Many wordpress plugins are filled with explanations, comments and examples.
These can be removed to save additional space and thus increase the download speed of your website.
Use the mentioned above compressors to compress plugins like Lightbox or Flash-embedding plugins.
If you ever run low on bandwidth, deactivate unneeded plugins (and later on re-activate them!) for the needed time.
You will be surprised by the amount of traffic the lightbox.js does generate.
Also check your site for deadlinks, sometimes a deadlink generates a 404-error page. If you got custom error-pages that render a nice “not found”-page, this is a massive traffic and bandwidth generator. Locating these files and fixing their deadlinks is essential to maintaining a slick site.

b. enable server-side options to tweak the way stuff gets transfered

  b.1 gzip compression
  b.2 *Sql tweaks / WordPress 2.1

b.1 Save bandwidth and optimize speed using server-side options

If you can get your hoster or admin to enable mod_deflate (former mod_gzip), you are most likely to save tons of bandwidth, because of serving compressed content. Note: not all browsers support this. Read all full tutorial on that here.

b.2 Save bandwidth and optimize speed using sql-tweaks (WP 2.1)

In January this year, WordPress 2.1 was released:
They state:
[...] Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb [...]
But if you want some real fast WordPress a-like CMS, go for Flatpress, a SQL-less CMS (currently under development). Static files, such as html, load faster than any dynamic ones. just as a golden rule.

c. move the server to a location where most of your visitors come from

  c.1 mirrors and foreign hosting

c.1 Relocating your website

Sometimes it makes more sense relocating your website to the country of #1 traffic origin or offering a mirror server then merely tweaking your site. If you’d for example have a Fansite dealing with an American (US) actress or model, but run your website from Europe, then most of your targeted audience (Americans) will have a slower site experience than if you’d place a server on the American mainland. Even ‘mainland’ is not equal mainland, due to the huge geographic distance of the east and westcoast. Thus offering mirror might be a wise idea. So based on the origin of site request either www1 or www2 is accessed.

I will be moving to DREAMHOST (LAX, USA), but not merely because of the later stated issue of traffic origin. In the next few days this site will be moved (early February), so if you experience any trouble, please be patient, feel free to comment or drop me a mail at jez at this domain (h4x3d.com). I hope you enjoyed this article and also checkout my five tips for your daily work life.
]]> http://h4x3d.com/how-to-preserve-bandwidth-and-speed-up-your-site/feed/ 1 Design Your Site for Traffic http://h4x3d.com/design-your-site-for-traffic/ http://h4x3d.com/design-your-site-for-traffic/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:34:03 +0000 jez http://localhost/v9.1/?p=32 What better way to start the new year than with more Traffic to your web site. Web Traffic is a critical part of your internet business and it is imperative that you design it to bring you the most amount of Traffic possible.

Designing your site for Traffic includes offering good content, easy navigation and a logical flow. Additionally you must also build your site to draw Traffic from the search engines because if you can obtain high search engine ranking, you can enjoy free Traffic.

It’s important to note, however that good ranking won’t do you much good without a well designed site and a well designed site can’t bring you visitors if no one knows it’s there. Both high ranking and good design need to work together.

How do we pull all this together? Let’s take a look.

-A Word About Design-

A huge mistake I see many website owners make is that they get caught up in making their site cute. They love the little animations, buttons and dramatic backgrounds. What they fail to consider is that these things are worthless if you don’t offer good content, easy navigation and a logical flow.

First of all don’t try to be everything to everyone. Design your site around a theme, preferably a niche theme. Don’t confuse your readers with links all over the page. Design a logical flow. Lead your viewers to where you would like them to go. Leave plenty of white space and keep your pages organized. Clearly state at the top of your pages what you are about and what you would like your viewers to do.

Secondly, I don’t recommend pop-ups. I find that the majority of internet users find them annoying. The demand for pop-up blockers is a good indication that viewers don’t want to see them.

Thirdly, offer good content. Provide information on your site that will help viewers solve a problem. Offer information that they might not get elsewhere. Write reviews regarding your products. Write newsletters and articles and most importantly offer something of value for fr?e. Give your viewers a reason to come back. It will also build trust in you.

-Traffic Builders-

Good search engine ranking can bring lots of visitors to your site. It often takes a few months to rank well but the payoff is lots of qualified Traffic. While it’s not practical to depend solely on search engines for Traffic it can complement your other advertising campaigns nicely. Aiming for high search engine placement is always a plus.

Keep these in mind when developing your site for the search engines:

- Domain Names
Choose a domain name that has your site keywords in it. For example, if you’re a site about pet care, try to include the words “pet care” or words related to pet care in your domain name if you can.

- Keywords
Keywords require research and there are several tools to help you out in this area. These are my favorites:

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

I suggest focusing on only one keyword or keyword phrase per page of your website. This may not seem like a lot but if your site has 20 pages you can focus on 20 keywords. Each page should be considered a landing page for your site. If you have proper navigation on your pages, it will easily allow viewers to see everything you have to offer.

Include your keyword or keyword phrase at the top of your page as well as in at least one header phrase. Also work the keywords into the body of your text as often as you can without sounding redundant.

Your keywords should be in the Title tag as well as in your page description tag. Many search engines no longer look at the keyword tags, but I recommend using them and including the plural forms as well.

- Alt Tags
Search engines don’t index images, therefore any text on your site that is presented in image format won’t get indexed. To solve this problem, you can enter the image description in the ALT tag. To be sure that the search engines recognize all the content on your site, fill in your ALT tags with your keywords. This will boost your keyword frequency and help your site achieve better ranking.

- Linking
Search engines will rate your site by who is linking to your site, so it’s important to establish quality, related links. This can be accomplished in a few ways. One way is to establish reciprocal links with other like sites. When exchanging links be sure to include your keywords in your site title.

Review the page you are exchanging links with. Be sure it is a site that you find easy to navigate and informative. I also recommend that the site’s index page have a Google PR rating of at least one. This ensures that the site is not being penalized by Google. If it is a penalized site then you could be penalized as well for linking to it.

- Include a ‘tell a friend’ and ‘bookmark’ scr?pt on your site.
This gives viewers an easy way to bookmark you and most of all return to your site.

- Include a Site Map
Site Maps let visitors know what information you have, how it’s organized, where it is located with respect to other information, and how to get to that information with the least amount of clicks possible.

Site maps also provide spider food for search engine robots. This can increase your chances of becoming indexed because a site map allows the search engines to easily visit every page of your site.

A site map works best if you include a link to your site map in the navigation of every page on your site.

Finally, don’t let your site become stale. I have found that my search engine rankings improve when I periodically add new pages to my site and keep the content new and fresh. Follow these tips and 2005 may be your year for Traffic.

About The Author
Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sal?s.

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