With so many websites now in existence, webmasters from around the globe are looking for ways to be competitive in any and every search niche. After all, even those who are currently very competitive will lose their edge if they stop tweaking and implementing new strategies to keep them there – the internet is a rapidly evolving place. Site speed is one small factor that is brought up time and time again, mainly by those who are worried that site speed can impact SEO or users’ impressions of them. If you are worried about either, neither, or simply want a faster website, then continue reading to find out about a few incredible and oft-ignored ways to boost the speed of your website today!

Content Delivery Networks

If you have ever been on a website and out of boredom you gaze at the loading bar at the bottom of the screen, you might catch a glimpse of the abbreviation “cdn” in the address where you are being directed. This stands for content delivery network, and could be the best way to ensure consistently fast web speeds for your visitors. Content delivery networks use an array of servers through a company; when pinging servers, whichever server is closest or has the quickest response time will be the server that displays the content to the user. This dynamic network of sorts helps ensure that fast traffic is always a priority.

Use Browser Caching

Apache offers many tools for those who run their own websites or networks, but browser caching may be the best solution when it comes to speed on your website. While this may sound simple, you wouldn’t believe the number of websites that currently do not use browser caching: the first time that a user visits your website, the main elements of it are stored in a folder on his or her hard drive. Whenever he or she visits again in the future, these elements are instantly loaded and thereby reduce the amount of time it will take to reload the website.

Minimize Plugin Use

If you have a content management system like WordPress or Drupal, then you know how easy it can be to add plugins and forget about them. Unfortunately, this can be a prime reason why your website is running slower than it should be. All of those plugins that are active but not in use still attempt to utilize resources each time the site is loaded, adding crucial time to the length it takes pages to load. If you want to minimize your site speed and bandwidth alike, then you should definitely spend a few minutes un-installing any of these unnecessary plugins.

With the three outlined methods above, you can quickly and incredibly begin pinging servers and speeding them up for your clientele and traffic. While some methods to speed up websites can be time-consuming and expensive, the three mentioned here today can be done quickly and at little to no cost to you. Armed with this information, you can now head out into the world and do the right thing for your customers and clients!