Checklist of Performance Optimization

  July 21, 2020

Web development has become increasingly complex over the past decade. Rather than serving up static HTML, CSS, and images, JavaScript applications run on the browser and execute asynchronous API requests to retrieve information. JavaScript and CSS assets have become critical to performance with the rise of single-page applications and other modern web application architectures.

Read about how to optimize your JavaScript and CSS assets to reduce load times and improve the user experience.

Use these optimizations to improve your web application’s performance beyond JavaScript and CSS assets.

  • Optimize Your Images
    Images are typically one of the largest assets on web pages, and without optimization, they can cause performance issues. Make sure that you’re saving images in the proper format, using appropriate sizes, and enabling compression.
  • Optimize Your Database
    Databases are a common performance bottleneck. Expensive queries, N+1 queries, and the lack of indexing can dramatically increase the time it takes to complete a query and ultimately serve responses to a user. You should ensure that your database is optimized and queries are properly built to avoid these issues.
  • Fix Any Redirects
    Redirects can increase load times by adding a step to the loading process. For example, 301 redirects saying that files have permanently moved redirect users to a new location. Try to minimize the use of these redirects and find other ways to load the content faster that the user is seeking out.
  • Reduce Dependencies
    Many web applications rely on a myriad of third-party dependencies to operate, from CMS plug-ins to JavaScript libraries. These dependencies can introduce performance bottlenecks that can be difficult to troubleshoot since you’re not in direct control over the code. Minimizing dependencies can reduce these issues.
  • Optimize Your HTML
    HTML can be minified and optimized in the same way that JavaScript and CSS assets can, but that’s often forgotten by developers focused on only the largest assets.

LoadNinja browser-based load testing suite makes it easy to build data-driven tests with a record-and-replay functionality that can run across tens of thousands of cloud-based browsers. Developers can quickly debug any performance bottlenecks with actionable metrics for both web UI and API layers.

Do yourself a favor and start your free trial or schedule a demo today.