Understanding Asset Compression
Ever wondered why some websites load quite fast and others feel like theyâre struggling to open up. I think thereâs more to it than just the number of GIFs or fancy fonts you see. It may be much simpler and less flashy - files just need to load faster so thereâs no lag. Enter asset compression - a rather technical term that somehow does exactly what it says it should do.
Think of it as zipping up a huge folder full of images, videos, and text files, so you can send it all in a single email. Youâre basically squeezing everything in as neatly as possible so your website can load like the wind. And since everyone now expects every website to open instantly, it seems like this is possibly a very useful technique for brands and creators. There are multiple ways to go about compressing files and assets.
Some people just want to keep everything contained with a zip or rar file type because then you have complete control over what happens to each compressed item. Someone else might focus on individually shrinking down the images without sacrificing quality - mostly by picking the right format for the job. You also have javascript minification that removes all unnecessary code from the mix and leaves only the essentials that you need for everything to work smoothly.
The way I see it, it might not seem obvious at first glance, but compressing assets is probably one of the best things you could do to optimise your websiteâs speed and improve user experience. Even if you prefer using heavier images and high-quality video, there are ways that you could retain your creative vision without compromising on file size too much.
Benefits of Optimizing for Speed
Would you sit through a 10-second video ad if you could get on a competitorâs website at once. I know I wouldnât, and itâs one of the reasons why the average site visitor is rather impatient with waiting. A slow-loading website increases bounce rates like nothing else and limits your site visitors to just the people whoâre already fans.
More or less. Makes Me Think Of youâre being swindled out of new traffic without realising it yet. I think most people donât realise that this is closely tied to their SEO rankings.
Google punishes you for slow load times and doesnât put your site on top pages of search results as easily. It also means that your content doesnât get social shares or link backs as often - all top indicators of authority in your niche that brand managers pay good money for. But thereâs more to quick load times than page conversions and authority - two things that are tied together. A laggy website sticks out like a sore thumb in 2024âs ad-ridden internet, giving off the impression that you arenât up-to-date on tech anymore or donât care about user experience as much as you once did.
It not only stops new users from coming in but can also affect how many of them stay loyal because slower websites mean worse performance on mobile, higher bounce rates, and less brand loyalty. The truth is, optimising for speed costs little time, effort, and money when compared to how much extra ROI it brings in. All it takes is compressing assets and ensuring your images are smaller-sized, limiting user time-per-page too. Sort of.
And yes, basic recommendations like better hosting can go a long way in making sure something so small doesn't stop your traffic from going where it needs to be - up.
Quick Fix #1: Image Compression Techniques
Are images on your site dragging down your load times. Itâs fairly common for designers and non-developers to not think twice about optimising images on their site â they get embedded and resized on the web page anyway, donât they. Well, yes and no. Sure, there are all sorts of tricks like using background-image properties in CSS and responsive elements but if the image itself hasnât been compressed before uploading, it can still contribute to slowing down your site.
If youâre looking for a quick win, image compression is the easiest way to go about it. If youâre still using JPEGs instead of WebP or AVIF formats, start by making that switch. Then see if compressing PNGs into smaller files without losing quality helps â there are plenty of free tools online that can do this with a few clicks. It seems like best part is it takes just a minute or two and can make a huge difference to your page load times.
But what if youâve got hundreds of images already up on your website. If youâre using a CMS platform like WordPress there are plug-ins available that will do the hard work for you. If youâre building from scratch, simply use an image compression tool or service that works in batches for larger sites and collections of photographs or graphics. A key step to remember here is also checking that compression hasnât affected how crisp and clear your images look.
More or less. You can always tweak formats or even convert smaller GIFs to SVGs (scalable vector graphics) for icons or logo files as they preserve the best qualities when scaled up or down across devices. Generally speaking, simply knowing where to find these tools online is half the battle won.
Quick Fix #2: Minifying CSS and JavaScript
Suggests That ever wondered why your website seems to take forever to load, even though it doesnât look heavy. Chances are, your css and javascript files are bloated with unnecessary spaces, line breaks, and comments. While these elements make the code easier for humans to read, they can slow things down when a browser has to sift through them. That's where minification comes in.
More or less. Itâs a fairly straightforward process â basically stripping out all those superfluous characters from your code without changing its functionality. If youâre already using content management systems like WordPress or Shopify, thereâs a fair chance youâll find plugins that do this for you.
It might seem intimidating at first if you havenât dabbled in code before but itâs not too hard once you get your head around the basics. Some developers will tell you that every byte counts and thatâs technically true - but unless youâre running a large-scale e-commerce platform or news site with millions of visitors, you donât need to go overboard on minification. There is still merit in doing it though, because any improvement (no matter how small) in page load speed is always a good thing - especially in the day and age of zero patience. You want people to stick around and explore your pages so cutting down on even milliseconds is allegedly worth the time investment.
If you ever get stuck on something here or arenât quite sure if itâs going to work for your website, have a chat with someone experienced in web development or ask your hosting partner for help. As far as quick fixes go though - this one's a very strong contender.
Quick Fix #3: Leveraging Browser Caching
Have you ever noticed how some websites open in a flash, while others take an excruciating time to show up. I think a lot of it comes down to caching. Because if you can harness the power of browser caching, your websiteâs overall speed and performance can go up considerably - for something that doesnât even feel like actual work. When a user visits a webpage for the first time, their browser stores certain files locally on their device - CSS files, images, JavaScript, and so on.
It does this so it doesnât have to reload all of these elements every single time the user comes back. But this isnât always enabled by default. And Iâve found that at times, it is set to values that are too low for files that donât change often. So if you want to optimise your websiteâs load speed, youâre going to have to mess around with your websiteâs headers a bit.
So how do you go about enabling browser caching or changing its cache durations. If youâre using WordPress like most people out there are nowadays, there are tons of plugins that will allow you to play around with your cache settings without needing any technical know-how. They let you set custom expiry dates for individual files so stuff that doesnât change doesnât get updated often.
And things like homepage banners can be reloaded more often. Sort of. I love browser caching - especially because it is something I can do myself without having to ask my devs for help every single time.
If I know some images or assets havenât been changed in a long while, I know theyâre not going to be updated anytime soon either - and setting them to only update once a year is quite reasonable.
Quick Fix #4: Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Did you ever think about how your favourite Instagram posts, or even those viral TikTok videos, load so quickly â no matter where youâre sitting. Itâs not always because of your speedy home Wi-Fi, or the fact that you just updated your app. Itâs often thanks to these clever things called content delivery networks (CDNs). CDNs are basically a series of servers located in different parts of the world.
Sort of. They store cached versions of static content (like images and videos) from websites. So if youâre logging into a website from India, the CDN will pull out static content from its closest server to your location, rather than all the way from North America.
This means your device wonât have to load static content like images directly from the websiteâs main server, which is slightly sometimes across an ocean. There are evidently many CDN solutions out there â some are free, and some are paid. Both can optimise your websiteâs performance greatly by increasing web page loading speed and reducing bandwidth consumption.
I think itâs fairly safe to say that using CDNs is especially important if you want to create a more localised experience for people based in different parts of the world. Why serve a user in Bangalore with digital assets loaded from your main server in New York, right.