With the rush to create mobile-friendly sites prior to Google’s next algorithm launching on April 21st, it’s important not to sacrifice performance. As previously mentioned by Google, site performance is also a key ranking factor. This info was first unleashed by Google in 2010 for desktops and then again in 2013 for mobile sites.
Measure Your Mobile Site Performance
First and foremost, measure your mobile site performance so you can recognize where you need improvements. There are a slew of free resources to take advantage of including the simple Webpage Test and Google Chrome’s built-in Developer Tools.
Through Chrome’s Developer Tools, you can easily check how your images account for your page content. On average, images account for over 60% of page content. It is advised not to use larger images for a mobile site as they will surely slow it down. Regardless of how glamorous your image may be, always choose the smaller photo when it comes to a mobile-friendly design.
Avoid jQuery
The unifying interface provided by jQuery will weigh down your site because you are dealing with around 30kb—even after compressing. In fact, mobile is dominated by WebKit derived browsers like Safari and Chrome.
Don’t Go Near GIFS
Although intriguing, animated GIFS are cumbersome to download and will slow down your site. If you feel the need to put a movie clip into your mobile-site, opt out for HTML 5. It’s 10% or less the size of an animated GIF.