How do I Prevent Slow Access & Downtime in an eCommerce Website?

To encourage customers to spend more time on the website and reduce the chances of shopping cart abandonment or disconnections, eCommerce businesses must prevent slow access and downtime. Websites that are slow or experience downtime can suffer consistent loss of sales and customer retention. Customers become easily agitated when confronted with a slow website or one that has consistent downtime. Businesses must prevent their eCommerce websites from having slow loading times and experiencing downtime.

Instructions

1. Reduce the number of HTTP requests. This is achievable by either simplifying the ecommerce website's design or by using techniques to reduce the number of components. According to Yahoo Developer, website developers can reduce the number of HTTP requests by using combined files, css sprites, image maps and inline images.

2. Set up HTTP caching, a good way to optimize your site. This provides a local copy of resources so that connections save time to load the data. Google Code recommends that the header should be set to at least one month in the future, with preferences given to a year in the future. Even though this is typically done for images, it should also incorporate stylesheets, scripts, and Flash components.

3. Optimize graphics. Ecommerce websites that feature many images or graphics must be optimized for the web. Computer software, such as Adobe Photoshop, allows you to compress the image or save it with a limited color palette. Consider converting GIFs to PNG format to see if it results in a lower file size, plus remove comments and EXIF information from JPEG images.

4. Increase PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) Performance. Most eCommerce websites use PHP coding and apply specific techniques to optimize its performance. Google Code recommends upgrading to the newest version of PHP, which is currently 5.2.x in 2010. In addition, they recommend using a caching module or templating system to cache database results and pages. Some other tips include using output buffering, avoid writing naïve setters and getters, only copy variables when needed and avoid placing SQL queries within a loop.

5. Evaluate hosting service. If on a shared hosting plan then you should consider moving to a virtual private server (VPS) or a dedicated server. When one business on a shared hosting plan exceeds its bandwidth or has faulty scripts, then this can cause a significant increase in loading time and higher probabilities of website crashes. Verify that the hosting plan or server has enough bandwidth allocated to your Ecommerce website so that the website does not reach or exceed its limit.

References

• ZDNet: How to Make Your Website Really, Really Fast
• Yahoo Developer Network: Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site
• Google Code:HTTP Caching