Do you want to know the biggest culprit for slow load times? JavaScript (JS). It often accounts for a huge chunk of your page weight, typically 20-40%. But, there IS something you can do about it.

In our blog post, “Why Site Reliability is important” we highlighted the critical role of speed. To recap: in today’s competitive environment, users expect instant access to the content they seek. Slow page load times not only harm the user experience (UX) and lead to higher bounce rates, but also have a direct impact on SEO rankings.

At Firney, your dedicated engineering partner, we deploy a number of proven optimization techniques to supercharge your JS, directly translating into business benefits for you.

Ensure the first impression is a lasting one

We eliminate load time friction and focus on guaranteeing the user can start interacting immediately, by:

• Critical component splitting & minification: We compress those massive JavaScript files and ensure only the truly essential elements (like your call-to-action button or form fields) load first.
• Load-only-when-needed: We delay non-critical items (such as heavy interactive maps or CAPTCHA forms) until the user actually needs them. This single practice speeds up the initial page render, protecting that crucial first impression.
• Using CSS for animations: Where possible, we substitute more lightweight CSS instead of heavy JavaScript for animations. This ensures smooth visual feedback without draining resources, leading to a flawless, professional feel.

Guarantee performance, even on 3G

We ensure your platform works reliably no matter the user's location or network speed, by:

• Edge caching (CDN): We set up your Content Delivery Network (CDN) to store assets as close as possible to the user. This reduces latency and load time globally, ensuring high performance for your campaigns wherever they launch.
• GZip compression: We compress the minified JavaScript files even further using GZip. This minimises the data transferred, meaning your site loads faster, especially on slower mobile connections, where a large percentage of traffic often comes from.
• Eliminating heavy/dead code: We aggressively clean up old, unused JavaScript libraries and remove "dead code." This reduces the overall weight your users have to download, improving overall UX scores and guaranteeing future speed tests pass.

Automation & Efficiency

We save developer hours, prevent costly, recurring mistakes, and protect your budget through eliminating manual risk:

• Use a task runner (Webpack): We automate the entire minification and splitting process using tools like Webpack. This removes manual errors, saves developer hours, and ensures every deployment is instantly optimised for speed, every time.
• Prioritise lightweight frameworks: We advise using lightweight tools or converting large, underutilised libraries into raw, smaller JavaScript. This future-proofs your speed and cuts down on third-party dependencies that often slow things down.
• Hosting third-party libraries: We host external libraries on your server (rather than relying on a third-party CDN). This reduces external points of failure, meaning less chance of an unexpected outage completely breaking your page functionality.

Conclusion

Every optimisation we perform (from minification to edge caching) is designed to strengthen your competitive advantage.

By partnering with Firney, you gain dedicated expertise focused solely on building the flawless technical foundation you need to scale. We ensure your website is always fast enough to capture every lead and convert every opportunity.