Website Optimization Measures, Part IV
Published on MayĀ 5, 2008 (updated FebĀ 5, 2024), filed under development, design, optimization (feed). (Share this on Mastodon orĀ Bluesky?)
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development. And speaking of which, hereās a short treatise just about managing the quality of websites: The Little Book of Website Quality Control (updated).
Once again, though already covering a few weeks of various improvements, some of which have been implemented in Bremen, others in Zurich, all on some of my sites. Enjoy additional optimization tips, this time touching typography, usability, SEO, and performance.
Applying the typographic scale. Thanks to Mark Boulton I went for another typography update by carefully adjusting the font sizes in my projects, and it is Mark who can explain best what the benefit of addressing the typographic scale is:
Typographic scale. (Copyright MarkĀ Boulton.) So, whatās so special about these sizes? Well, because this scale of sizes has been used for centuries, if set correctly, type set in this scale will appear more pleasing to the eye and therefore more legible.
Revising ātitleā elements, consistently putting the site name last. One might consider it a usability, SEO, or ācommon senseā measure that page titles should describe the content of the page first, then reveal the siteās title. After all, itās the content that counts, and the first words are important to illustrate whatās going on in the document in question. While I have been applying this method for ages, there still were a few āgeneralā pages that featured the site name first, then described the content. This has been fixed.
Example: āArchive for 2008 ā Jens Meiertā instead of āJens Meiert ā Archive for 2008ā, (in this case) following a convention to assemble the page title out of the
h2
andh1
headings, in this order.Using a content delivery network. Since you probably noticed this measure in a recent tip, I wonāt repeat what I wrote there. Using a CDN is a nice exercise, even though itās a large, widespread audience that makes them impactful; other performance measures can be more important.
Enabling file compression. Some of you may have heard of my compression tests, too, as I recently enabled compression of HTML files, style sheets, and scripts by adding the following line to my projectsā root .htaccess files (all on Apache 2 machines):
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml text/css text/html text/javascript text/plain
Be aware, however, that some providers do not allow the use of
AddOutputFilterByType
or the corresponding server module, respectively (which can result in an internal server error), that this directive is available in Apache 2.0.33 and later (but deprecated in Apache 2.1ā¦), that you better make sure that your server not only applies compression but also returns aVary: Accept-Encoding
header (to avoid proxy problems), and that I lazy guy will write about compression (and alternatives toAddOutputFilterByType
) in more detail at a later point.
Less detailed information than usual, but please keep in mind that this series of posts has to be seen as a loose log of measures I apply to my sites, rather than a comprehensive guide for more quality of other sites.
This is a part of an open article series. Check out some of the other optimization posts!
About Me
Iām Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iām a web developer, manager, and author. Iāve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies youāve never heard of and companies you use every day, Iām an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for OāReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)