Monday 29 July 2019

Changes Needed for Improved WebPage Performance

There are numerous ways of improving web-page performance. Each of the methods varies from one to the other Besides, and it also works differently for each person.
Users left with no patience. Hence, they want the website to load faster, quicker, and of course, user-friendly to navigate. There are three core areas to focus on.
  1. Hardware i.e. Web Server
  2. Server Side Scripting
  3. Front-end Performance
Those mentioned above are the three main areas to focus on web development. With that thought in mind, we have a curated blog that shows the necessary changes needed for the improved webpage performance. Curious to know? Let us check out the blog! 

HTTP Requests

HTTP stands for the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The requests from the HTTP are numbered whenever a browser fetches the information, picture, or file from the server. 

As per the statistics, the HTTP requests tend to consume 80% of the webpage loading time. Besides, the browser will limit the requests to 4-8 connections per domain. Hence, this will result in using more HTTP requests. It will take longer to load as retrieving the data consumes time. 

So, try to minimize the HTTP requests by combining the CSS or JavaScript files. In addition to that, you can also reduce the number of images used. If they are huge, compress them to for fewer HTTP requests. 

Inline CSS and JavaScript

It’s by default that the browsers fetch the external CSS and JavaScript. When the user shifts from the landing page, the browser will store the stylesheets and of course, the JavaScript files.

If you are using plenty of CSS and JavaScript files in the HTML document, then you unable to take full advantage of the web-browser’s caching features.  

Speed-Optimized Theme

If you are a WordPress user, then you can improve the webpage performance by using the speed-optimized themes available for free and paid versions. For someone who lacks in coding, this turns out to be a brilliant option in optimizing the speed.

Also Read
Top 8 SEO Plugins For WordPress Website

Minimize Resources

When the web developers design the website, they use plenty of spaces, indentations, and line breaks for secure communication within the team. While this is helpful to them, it does make the webpage look clutter and longer. It also increases the page-loading time.

Therefore, a simple way to resolve it is by minimizing the resources that make the coding languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript leaner. You can also use the plugins for page loading time. 

Fixing Broken Links

Broken links tend to upset the customers and make the UX look poor. It also slows down the speed of the website. So, one has to check the broken links. If you try to do it manually, then it will undoubtedly become a tedious task. 

Thus, use the tools and plugins available to take care of the broken links. Once, you have installed the tool or plugin, then it will monitor all the links and gives notification via email or WordPress dashboard. 

Compressing Images

According to the statistics, 60% of the average bytes loads per page, this is around 1504 KB. Images consequently consume a large amount of the HTTP requests. Most of the times, we tend to download the photos from the stock and without knowing the size and later uploading it on the server without optimizing the images for the web that leads to a slower response.

If you find yourself in such a situation, then you can install the plugins that automatically optimizes the images. There are even software options available Image Optimizer and Compressor.io for optimizations. 

Dedicated Hosting

Last but not least comes the dedicated hosting options. If you are using the shared hosting option and not happy with the output, then it is high time to shift towards the dedicated hosting plans. It’s costly, but the investment is worth it.

One does not have to deal with the traffic surges and other small problems that occur in slowing down the web-page performance. But, when you have a dedicated hosting option, many advantages on your way. 

Time is money, especially when it comes to web-page performance. As we mentioned earlier, visitors go away from the websites that run slow; one has to make subsequent efforts in improvising it. 

The above seven changes help optimize web-page performance. Apart from the ones mentioned above, there are plenty of ways to try. So, go ahead and bring changes to your website. If you like the blog, then do share and drop suggestions in the comment section below. 

Monday 15 July 2019

Social Media and the Role it Plays in our Lives

Social media plays such a vital role in our lives now. We can’t imagine life without it. This has become a global phenomenon and still widely spread. Social media is a medium that reaches people all around the globe. People are so connected these days; it is true that in the last 15 years, social media has taken the world by storm. Not so long ago was life still black and white? It was still a life where cell phones have not taken our lives completely and where we still use telephones to connect. The internet was used restrictedly, but this was just 10 -15 years back, and till then, social media management and the internet has taken our lives by storm. It is estimated that in the next 15 -20 years, everyone will have access to the internet.

When we talk about the internet, we can't ignore the social media sites be it Facebook or Instagram. These two sites have taken the world by storm and are conquering both the youth and the older generations. How social media gained popularity.

Social media - How it all began

When the social media sites of hi5 and Orkut was created and launched, it didn't impact the people too much because at that point the internet was not introduced in the cell phones at a cheap rate. The internet was accessible only through laptops and computers. Although these sites like hi5 and Orkut gained popularity, the youth and older generation alike didn't get addicted. The first internet services introduced in phones was in 1996, but the internet services were limited and really expensive, and this carried on till the year 2004 -05 when the internet services started becoming more popular in cell phones, it was around this year 2004 that the internet sensation Facebook was launched too and there’s no looking back.

With the introduction of cheaper internet rates and Facebook in 2004, the internet became a household name, and its popularity isn’t taking aback by anything since then. Let’s take a look at youth and the social media

Youth and Social Media 

 Previously the internet was accessible to people, but it didn't play such a pivotal role in their life. Yes, it connected everyone, but people would use the internet only using email, but with the dawn of Facebook and other social sites, it has completely taken away the time of the youth who spends about 5 -6 hours on the social media sites such Facebook, Instagram, and other such addictive sites. Facebook was created and used in 2006-07, and Instagram was launched in 2010 and has gotten the whole world hooked on them, and this is not slowing down thousands of people are creating their Facebook and Instagram account so as we're talking.

Effect of social media 

There is a widespread effect of social media, especially Instagram and Facebook. The most common negative effect is addiction.

Addiction 

The youth especially are addicted to these social media site, and social media control every aspect of their lives. They spend so much time on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and the latest addictive site TikTok. It can be assumed that social media has more addictive quality than cigarettes and alcohol, and this is alarming.

Sleeping Pattern 

Another effect of social media is unhealthy sleeping patterns. With the youth becoming increasingly addicted, they have unhealthy sleeping patterns. Because the youth use their social media until the late wee hours of the night, they generally lose their sleep. The social media sites are not only addictive, but it also affects the sleeping patterns because the youth would use the social media sites until the late hours of the night they generally fall asleep with their phones and wake up the next day holding on to their phones.

Depression

Another side effect of social media is poor mental health. It is found in studies that the excessive use of social media results in poor mental health and poor mood, which leads to numerous mood swings. It is found that the more time you spend on the internet or social media sites, the more it has adverse effects on your mood.

Unrealistic Expectation 

Because of the pressure to look good and present you in the best way at all time, this creates unrealistic expectations. For example, Instagram is a site where you upload your photos so generally the youth or the older generation would like to upload only photos where they look good, or they would like to upload photos of places they've visited. This instant need to look good and present yourself and your lifestyle in a grand manner lead to harming ways in which the individual either spends so much money to look good and spend money on their trips just so to look good on social sites and impress their followers on Instagram.

Ruins Body Image 

If you scrutinize Instagram, you'll see that the celebrities play a major role in it and the celebs would post a picture of their perfect body and rich lifestyle and this creates such a disparity between the celebs and the common man. The common man starts building negative body image, and they would also like to become more like the celebs, and this harms them more than anything else.

Briefly 

It is therefore important to curb our needs and use of social media. If we use social media in moderation then there are no ways we'll get addicted to it, and we can perform our daily functions without many troubles because social media really mess up with our daily functionality instead of doing our homework we spend our time on the social sites and this creates havoc to our daily lives.

Finally

To conclude, it is important to maintain moderation in life, be it in everything we do. So the same goes to social sites if we spend around 1 hour or at the most two hours on the social sites this doesn’t hamper with our daily lives and routine and it is good to be connected too.

Author Bio

Walter Moore is a notable management consultant and digital marketing expert. He is an experienced digital marketer and has helped e-commerce businesses in all niches gain with his effective marketing strategies and guidance.

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Instagram: The Perfect Social Networking Platform for Businesses

It has already been discovered that Instagram has been responsible for surpassing both Facebook as well as Twitter in terms of the total number of users who are active. Currently, Instagram is the most preferred social networking platform that most of the businesses use for marketing their business. Instagram is simple, convenient, and user-friendly. The growing popularity of Instagram is what has helped businesses to trust this platform more in comparison to the various other platforms that are there. There are few businesses that are still confused as to why Instagram is ideal for them as well. According to blog.hootsuite.com, there are almost 25 million businesses on Instagram.

Consider the list of reasons to find out why Instagram is going to be perfect for your newly established business.

Instagram hashtags are on the rise

You already know about the Instagram hashtags and this is not something new. Hashtags are responsible for making the Instagram posts discoverable and people who are looking for the type of business that you are into will easily come across your business with the help of hashtags. Hashtags are considered to be one of the most straightforward ways of connecting with people who are interested in your business and the services and products that you are offering. If you use appropriate and relevant hashtags, you can be assured that you are going to get more customers, and this can even increase your business revenue. You can also use Like4Like in the caption so as to receive more likes on your posts.

Business profiles on Instagram

Businesses that are on Instagram can make use of the business profiles in order to make them look more professional. Business profiles have numerous advantages and you will have the option of adding your contact details as well. The contact details will help people to locate you or contact you in case if they have any kinds of questions. Apart from that, you will have the option of understanding how all your posts are performing.

You will get detailed knowledge regarding when your audience is active and also the kinds of content that they are interested in receiving from you. In addition, you will also understand the number of website clicks that you are receiving. If you have just started your business on Instagram, it is suggested that you switch to your business profile so that you can get the best out of it.

Increased duration of videos

Earlier, videos on Instagram had a length of 15 seconds only. This made it extremely tough for marketers to highlight the important stuff. However, currently the duration of the videos on Instagram has been increased to one minute and this has been proving to be truly beneficial for numerous businesses already. You can make use of Instagram videos for displaying how your products are created or interesting behind-the-scenes, that will arouse the interest of your present and potential audience.

Conclusion

There is no denying the fact that marketing on social media is crucial for all businesses, whether they are big or small. Make sure that you are also taking your business to Instagram so that you can taste success faster in comparison to the other social networking sites.

Author Bio

Walter Moore is a notable management consultant and digital marketing expert. He is an experienced digital marketer and has helped e-commerce businesses in all niches gain with his effective marketing strategies and guidance.