How Web Developers Can Improve Front-End Performance

Unfortunately, many web developers tend to forget about optimizing their work for improved performance, but the reality of the situation is that organized, valid code ensures the compatibility of the website. Not only should a web developer focus on preparing their code to be read by other developers, they should also be preparing it to be read by web browsers.

Use these tips to improve the front-end performance of your website:

• Move JavaScript to the footer of the page
  This is, by far, the easiest and quickest thing a web developer can do to improve the performance of a website. This will cause the other elements of the page to begin loading before the JavaScript, which can make the overall page load faster.
• Put the CSS at the top of the page
  Placing the CSS before anything else is, ultimately, just as important as placing the JavaScript at the bottom – CSS often contains background images that require another round of server requests (getting these started as soon as possible is vital to performance), and the page will render as soon as the CSS is ready.
• Compile and minimize your CSS and JavaScript files
  Whilst it may make sense to a web developer to use several different style sheets and files, it can be a nightmare when it comes to the front-end performance of your website. Instead, you should compile all of your CSS into one file and all of your JavaScript into another, then minimize them both. It may seem like a pain to do this, but the improvement in performance will be huge.
• Watch out for third-party scripts
  These days, many web developers will include third-party scripts and widgets on their websites that will load data from other servers (such as the Tweet button, the Facebook fan button, and the Share This button). Many of these widgets actually make a large number of requests and block pages from downloading, so it is always better to use them sparingly and to install asynchronous widgets wherever possible.
• Measure your results
  There are a number of tools on the market that are designed to help web developers measure the performance of their website. In this way, you are able to see whether the site is performing well or not and where any changes are needed to improve this.

It is highly important for web developers to take front-end performance into account when beginning work on a new or existing project. After all, you would hate to be penalized by the search engines for having a website that takes an excessive amount of time or simply refuses to load. Not to mention the reaction of your visitors who are forced to sit there and wait. Web developers need to stop and take notice, then work accordingly.