How to reduce server response time
When a browser request something to server,based on type of web hosting your server response to that browser.In between the browser and the server many factors involve to load user requested page.
Website Traffic and hosting
When ever your website gets more traffic,the server takes much time to load page.Do you think it's server/hosting issue ?, absolutely no is the answer.Based on your hosting package i.e bandwidth server response.
Bandwidth plays vital role to speed up your website.Let's take a example,you are using shared hosting,which controls the traffic up to 10000 visitors per month.If you reach this stats,immediately server takes time to load that page.Because of your bandwidth allocation over.
Then what is the best solution ?, we recommends to choose best hosting company with VPS plan.WP engine, Siteground, hostgator and Blue host are some of the good web hosting companies offering different kind of VPS plans.
Even having VPS plan is not the permanent solution to reduce server response time.You have to use less resources to speedup your website.
If your website getting high traffic then upgrade to VPS plan.For low traffic websites stick with shared hosting and save money.
Website Resource Usage
Your website loads several CSS files,Images and JavaScript files for each request.Just checkout your WordPress theme,it may have several CSS and JS files,make them one each to avoid round trip for the browser and server.
Use less resources in your website by changing the following scripts.
Inline Small CSS :
Inline CSS is a advanced pagespeed technique recommends to speed up your website. Put your CSS into HTML file instead of keeping it on external CSS file.So,it will reduce the files the browser has to download and display user requested page.
Combine External CSS :
To call less resources for each page,combine external CSS files to one.Multiple CSS files are not at all required.Copy and paste the external CSS code to main CSS file.Take a look of ultimate guide to combine external css files.
Inline Small JavaScript :
To Inline JavaScript,Put your JavaScript into HTML file instead of keeping it on external JS file.So,it will reduce the files the browser has to download and display user requested page.
Combine External JavaScript :
Make one JS file instead of multiple JavaScript files.Copy and paste the external JavaScript code to main JS file.Learn more how to combine external Javascript files.
Minify CSS and JavaScript
Use online tools to compress and minify CSS and JavaScript files.Reduce CSS and JS file sizes up to 50 to 60% by removing white spaces,compress colors,font-weight and line breaks.
Use CDN :
Consider using Content delivary network,CDN services for faster page loading.MaxCDN and Cloudflare are most popular content delivery networks in the world.
Leverage Browser caching:
If you are using WordPress ,then install and configure W3 total Cache or WP Super Cache plugin for even more speed.Leverage browser caching saves bandwidth by remembering css,logo and favicon to load fast.
Optimize Images :
Reduce Image Size and properly scale image dimensions before uploading to your media.For WordPress users,many popular plugins available to do it safely. Wp Smust it and Lazy load images typically reduces image size.
You must use less resources to improve server load time.The last but not least website server software's like Nginx,Apache and LiteSpeed are very popular,where one of the software your are using.PHP runs fast with Nginx over Apache.