1. Check our websites to blame

Check the weight of HTML, CSS, JS, images and load time. Firebug in Firefox you can use for this task.

2. Save images in the format

Learning to compress and optimize images is vital, we can avail ourselves of Photoshop, Gimp, or others to this task, but we should not ignore the capabilities of each format in terms of color, animation support, compression, etc., so you know which is appropriate to each image.

3. Decrease the weight of CSS and JavaScript

While design time and development is better to work with tabs and have their documents easily understandable visual clarity at the time of publishing, such spaces, line breaks and tabs are extra weight!

4.Combining CSS and JavaScript files to reduce HTTP requests

For each file we include in our pages makes a request to the server, if we have multiple CSS or JavaScript files should unify, as calling a JavaScript and CSS file will only have 2 requests.

5. Using CSS Sprites to reduce requests

Rather than call our 40 CSS files and icons and buttons are compelled to do 40 requests we can combine these images into a single file to that template with all images is called Sprite, then with CSS show the proper image portion in every place of our design, but using a single request and charge. This technique is also good for the image being lower than the sum of many and benefit from caching it.

6. Use file compression on the server to reduce the size

With this we get the traffic of information between client and server is lower, which means greater speed. The browser will display the contents before it decompresses and displays. It can be applied to CSS, HTML, etc.

7. Do not use CSS and JavaScript within HTML

The current browsers cached CSS files, JavaScript, and images, so if our 20 pages of our institutional site using the same CSS and a single user navigates those 20 pages, CSS is only transferred once, then always use the copy local browser cache is achieved faster, less transfer and server load. If instead we include the CSS and JavaScript in our HTML and not in separate files, lost in speed, weight transfer and gain and sluggishness.

8. Include files and resources outside of our site

Using tools such as FeedBurner to keep a backup of our RSS and serve our users, prevent each user to read directly and overload our server. The same happens if hosted images or files to download at sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Amazon, among others. In the case of libraries CSS, AJAX and JavaScript, there are services like Google AJAX Libraries that lets you upload from your site libraries and frameworks like jQuery. An additional advantage is that if the user visited 1 or more sites that use these libraries offsite, to bear our site more quickly because they are already cached on your browser.

9. Plan optimal structure of your Web

For each user type and content has an appropriate structure, it is good to plan and test the structure of the site before releasing the final version. There are several techniques and tools, one of them is Cuzzillion that just allows these tests to find the optimal structure and order before completing the final design of our sites.

10. Monitor server performance and create benchmarks regularly

Be active tools that collect information on our server is the way to check regularly as our site evolves and works with these benchmarks we can see at a glance the problems and fix them quickly. It is also important to check the status of these reports before and after implementation of any changes.

I hope these tips are helpful, and if you are interested in any more than another I’m all ears (or eyes) to deepen in future opportunities.