How to Optimize Site Speed for Google Page Rank

Although Google did not officially admit it yet, recent tech news and interviews gave us a hint of things to come. What was once a tech buzz has now become an open discussion and word spread around that Google might consider page load up speed as a requirement for Page Rank. A recent interview by WebProNews to Google’s Matt Cutts revealed the importance of page speed and how it could benefit visitor’s blogging experience.

According to the video interview of WebProNews, Cutts mentioned that "Historically, we haven't had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast," He further explained that "It should be a good experience, and so it's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

A host of different reactions was noticed after the interview but whether Google will consider speed as a factor for page rank or not, it’s always a good thing to optimize you site’s speed performance. If page speed will not be included in Google’s page rank requirement at least you’ll end up with a speedier site.

How to optimize you site if Google considers speed as a page rank factor?
1. Resize and consider the format of your Images
- Don’t overload your pages with large images, you are running a site not a billboard. Always consider image format ex. jpg for photos and png for images.

2. Reduce widget usage
- Aside from adding spice to your site, widgets also add load to your page speed performance, more widget means slow load up speed.

3. Clean up your Sidebar
- Widgets and links doesn’t only clatter up your sidebar and diverts attention away from your content but it also sucks up page loading speed.

4. Use Social book marking button only in your post
- I know it’s always handy to have a social booking marking button but putting it on your homepage will not help you speed up your site.

5. Minimize the number of posts in a page
- The rule of the thumb is simple, the more code present in a page the slower it’s loading will be.

6. Make your articles as concise and straight to the point as possible.
- I know you love writing and you never run out of ideas but composing a concise article will not only help your readers get your point but it will also help your sites speed performance.

7. Aggregate and clean up your CSS codes.
- Write your CSS codes as short as possible, merge shorthand properties, compress colors and font-weight and avoid unnecessary codes.
A free handy tool called CleanCSS can help you optimize your CSS codes.

8. Reduce your Http requests
- You can achieve this by reducing the number of objects in your website. Try to get rid of unnecessary images, headers, styling features. You can also combine two or more adjacent images into a single one.
If this measures is still not enough you can always visit Google webmaster tools section and select a wide range of add-ons and tools to measure and analyze your website’s speed. Some tools even offer suggestions on which part of your site needs to be optimized.

Here are some of the tools I found effective in optimizing my blog’s speed.
1. Page Speed – Could be found in Google’s webmaster tools page, it’s a Firefox Add-on that evaluates your web page performance and suggests improvements.

2. Firebug – It’s a Firefox Add-on that I used along with page Speed. It lets you edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript after

3. Yahoo! YSlow – A Firefox Add-on that works like Google’s Page Speed. It analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance, based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. Works best when integrated with Fire Bug.

Do you know any other ways, tools or add-ons that could help optimize our site’s speed?