Testing, testing and some more testing

One of my objectives with this site is to test its speed at every stage. I’m using GTMetrix as my main testing method. It’s a tool that will test a site with Google PageSpeed and YSlow and display results with useful explanations of the different test criteria.

Additionally, I’m using WebPageTest which gives similar results that are presented in a different format.

It’s clear that by testing more frequently I’ll identify problems sooner.

I’m hoping to maintain an A grade in all tests. The score is just an indicator though. I’m looking at each area and the page loading times in more depth after a test.

Results so far

It’s early days but so far I’m doing great (even if I do say so myself!).

My style sheet is minified as it is created so that’s good. And I’m not using any JavaScript files (apart from third party Google Analytics) that might need minifying.

Yet, there are a couple of issues I need to address at the next stage. Add gzip compression and set-up some caching expiry dates for different file types in my .htaccess file. Here’s a detailed explanation of how to use the .htacess file for compression and gzip.

I will be doing more work on image optimisation when I have added more images.