Technologies

March 12, 2025

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Many people know that improving the website loading speed by 0.5 sec is invisible to the users. But it’s still one of the essential search engine factors they use in their ranking algorithms. Also, many web users may use a slow Internet connection, even in the USA and Europe. That is why improving website loading speed is a high-priority task for web development teams. How to improve the website speed?

What is website speed?

Technically the term website loading speed is incorrect because it is about page loading speed. 

In short, website loading speed refers to how quickly the content and UI elements of the specific page load when a user visits it. 

Several factors can influence specific page speed: 

  • The amount and size of the images and videos are contained on the page
  • UI animations
  • Themes and plugins are installed on the site
  • Front-end and server-side technologies are used
  • The code quality
  • Hosting or server

But you must know that the user’s Internet connection also affects the web page speed.

Start with website speed testing

You may start the website speed test with your smartphone and mobile Internet connection. Does your site load quickly enough? Does your site look mobile-friendly? This test helps you to identify critical speed issues and how responsive the design of your website is.

But using a smartphone test can’t tell about a website’s score in terms of the website loading speed. Also, it can’t help to identify the causes of slow website loading. That is why you should use tools to test and measure your website’s loading speed.

The most used tool is Google Pagespeed Insights. It is easy to use and provides you with the most critical information. Look at the snapshot for our website.

AHN’s team developed this site. You can see good scores and no critical issues that could affect the website loading speed.

If Google Pagespeed Insights identifies issues, it will provide recommendations for increasing the website’s performance.

This free tool allows testing the site’s mobile and desktop versions. You can use the Lighthouse tool that is built-in Chrome browser—Press F12 to run web developer tools and choose the Lighthouse tool to test the page.

Also, web developers may use other tools like GTmetrix, Pingdom, or Performance Budget Calculator. 

Some tools are free, but other tools can be payable. Many web professionals use Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals reports because it is usually enough.

Guidelines to improve the website loading speed

The Lighthouse tool (Google Pagespeed Insights) assessed your site as poor (score is less than 50) or as a website that needs improvements (score from 50 to 89). A web developer must look at the tool’s recommendations and fix issues. 

This guide will help you to understand which factors influence website speed and how to increase it.

Optimize the images

Surprisingly, images are one of the most common issues affecting website loading speed. The main reason is that content managers do not pay attention to the size and format of the images when uploading them to the website.

There is a typical image optimization process.

Reduce the image size.

Photos, images, or graphics on the web pages improve engagement. But if you use large files, the images slow down a website.

Compressing images using tools is one way to reduce image size without affecting quality. Another way to reduce the image size is to adjust the image size based on user display properties.

Choose the right image format.

Look at this image. It shows the difference between a zoomed-in vector image L and a raster image R.

As you can see, vector images are preferable options as they are resolution-independent and always deliver excellent results.

If you use raster images, a web developer should serve different image sizes to other devices. But bear in mind that serving desktop-sized images to mobile phones can use 2–4x more data than needed.

Use WebP images

When Facebook switched to WebP, they noticed a 25-35% filesize savings for JPEGs and an 80% for PNGs.

How to convert images to WebP? Usually, web developers use the cwebp command-line tool (for simple projects) or the Imagemin WebP plugin(for complex projects).

Replace animated GIFs with video.

GIFs aren’t a good choice when you need a fast website because their size can be 10-15 MB.

It takes a lot of time to upload a GIF file. That is why web professionals convert GIFs into video files (MPEG or WebM).

Use image CDNs to optimize images.

Image content delivery networks (CDNs) specialize in transforming, optimizing, and delivering images. They are excellent at optimizing images and can yield a 40–80% savings in image file size. Image CDNs work like API, making it easy to create variations of an image for different use cases by indicating parameters like size, format, and quality.

Use lazy loading

Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-critical resources while the web page loads. In practice, the image lazy loading loads lightweight placeholder images at page load and replaces them with lazily-loaded images when they’re scrolled into the viewport.

Using lazy loading makes sense if you use many media files on your site.
Web developers can use a variety of ways to implement lazy loadings, such as browser-level lazy loading, Intersection Observer (JavaScript), or CSS. If your website is built on WordPress, you can use plugins.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Content delivery networks (CDNs) improve site performance using web servers distributed across various locations. These servers retrieve content from the website server and provide website content to users with regard to their location. CDNs reduce server load and handle traffic spikes. 

Also, CDNs allow caching resources on their servers. As a result, the resources are delivered more quickly. Cashing also reduces the load on the website server.

To choose a good CDN, you should focus on its performance, security, analytics features, support, and pricing. 

You need to know that CDN performance can vary significantly depending on geography, time of day, and different events. That is why predicting the exact performance you’ll get from a CDN is difficult.

Choosing a good CDN depends on the type of your site (e-commerce, corporate website, blog), user locations, and your budget.

Prioritize loading resources

Not every website resource has the same degree of importance, which is why browsers attempt to make a guess at the most important resources to load first. The problem is browsers could use the wrong priority for website resources. For example, loading scripts before CSS.

Web developers can use different ways to influence browsers’ priority-making process.

If a web developer adds the <script> tag in the page’s <head>, Chrome will load at a high priority. But using the async attribute changes it to low priority.

Also, a web developer can use <link rel=”preload”> (informs the browser that a resource should start getting fetched as soon as possible), <link rel=”preconnect”> (informs the browser that you’d like the process to start as soon as possible), and <link rel=”prefetch”> (it tries to make something non-critical happen earlier if there’s a chance) for other resources.

To make everything right, a web developer should know the browser’s priority for each resource. For example, to know Chrome’s priority, you need to press F12 to run DevTools and find the Network panel.

These priorities help to understand how much relative importance the browser attributes to resources. A web developer can influence the browser to assign a different priority. For example, if an image is a part of the initial render, a web developer prioritizes it higher than an image that starts offscreen.

Optimize CSS code

CSS code must be loaded before the browser renders the website page because it is a render-blocking resource. If these web pages contain unnecessarily large CSS code, it takes longer to render them.

There are two main techniques that web developers use.

The first is deferring non-critical CSS. Many non-critical styles apply to content that’s not immediately visible, for example, paragraphs inside the accordions. A web developer can defer this non-critical code.

The second is minifying CSS. Minification CSS files is a technique that reduces unnecessary code, comments, whitespaces, and indentation in CSS files. A professional web developer can safely remove unnecessary characters and reduce CSS file size without affecting website rendering. 

If web developers minify CSS files, you will see that recommendation “Minify CSS” moved to the “Passed Audits” section of the Lighthouse report.

Optimize JavaScript code

JavaScript code is a critical part of modern website design. On the other hand, using JavaScript code may slow down a website’s loading speed.

A web developer should analyze the Lighthouse report to fix JavaScript issues and speed up a website. There are most common issues and solutions.

First, the JavaScript code used on the website is a significant source of tasks. What is a task? A task is any discrete piece of work that the browser does and impacts the website’s performance. It can be rendering, parsing HTML and CSS, and running JavaScript code.

Some tasks can be too long (that take more than 50 milliseconds), and a web developer should break up such tasks. In other words, a web developer needs to divide a long task into smaller tasks that take less time using one of the task management strategies like the async attribute, manually defer code execution, yield only when necessary, and others. Choosing a strategy depends on the main website features you’d want to consider when managing tasks because it is about usability and how users interact with a website.

Minification JS code is another way to improve a website’s speed. To minify JS code a web developer should remove whitespace and any code that is not necessary to create a perfectly valid code file.

JS code compression is the process of modifying data using a specific algorithm. Most web developers use Gzip for server and client interactions, but Brotli is a newer compression algorithm that helps to achieve even better compression results than Gzip.

Also, we recommend using modern JavaScript to avoid reducing the website’s loading speed.

Modern JavaScript means syntax supported by all modern browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. But using modern Java Script requires high-skilled web developers who have experience in advanced front-end and web app technologies.

Move a website to better hosting.

In some cases, the leading cause of slow website speed is hosting. A website owner must choose fast hosting to optimize the website’s performance.

Several solutions can be used to host a website.

Shared hosting is the most popular solution because it is cheap. But shared hosting means that you share the server’s CPU and RAM with many other sites that are also hosted on this server. If you need more RAM and CPU because your site attracts many visitors or use one of the modern frameworks, you need Virtual Private Servers (VPS) hosting or a dedicated server.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers are faster than shared hosting. VPS  is fit needs of many business and e-commerce sites because it uses multiple servers for content distribution and provides your own part of the virtual server.

Using a dedicated server is the most expensive solution because you need to rent or buy a server and pay for the system administrator’s services.

Now alternative solutions are also available for website owners. You can use cloud solutions like Microsoft Azure, Google, or AWS. Cloud providers provide quality services that can scale on demand for your needs.

Another alternative option is the serverless approach.

Choosing a hosting provider is not easy but worth the effort.

Conclusions

Currently, a website’s loading speed is a vital factor that search engines assess, affecting website traffic and, as a result, business revenue.

You can test your website speed using one of the tools to know if improvements are needed. 89 score and below means your site’s performance needs to be improved. Image optimization and minification of CSS and JS can speed up a website. But as you can see, it is not an easy task. 

Also, hiring skilled web developers who can write quality, optimized code is important. Because it is an almost impossible job to optimize a website that was created by low-skilled web specialists. Re-developing the website from scratch becomes easier, faster, and cheaper in this case.

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The Fighter Mentality Driving Anthony Kwok, CEO and Co-Founder at ZILIO, to Fix Fashion’s Most Overlooked Problem

Anthony Kwok’s journey didn’t begin in a boardroom. It began in places that demanded discipline, resilience, and the ability to keep going when things got uncomfortable. First in the ring as a professional fighter, and later through a medical crisis that reshaped how he approached both life and leadership.

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The Lessons That Carried Him Through

Before stepping into the tech world, Anthony spent his years as a professional fighter competing on FoxSports. Growing up Asian in a predominantly white environment, he felt he had to work twice as hard to be seen. This drive eventually led him to the ISKA Victorian Title. However, his toughest fight came outside the ring when he suffered two strokes the same year he founded ZILIO.

Walking away would have been understandable. Instead, Anthony leaned into the discipline he learned as a fighter. As he puts it, “Being a professional fighter taught me one non-negotiable principle: Never quit. No matter what. That philosophy carried me through recovery and continues to guide how I build today.”

Solving the “Booty Short” Problem

The idea for ZILIO was born from personal frustration. As an athlete with a specific build, Anthony found online shopping to be a constant gamble. He still remembers ordering gym shorts that arrived fitting like “booty shorts,” an experience that made him wonder why we can dress video game avatars perfectly but struggle to do the same in real life.

ZILIO solves this by replacing confusing size charts with accurate AI recommendations. The company started with corporate uniforms, where poor fit creates massive operational headaches for brands like Coles and Australian Unity. The impact was immediate. ZILIO has helped partners cut returns by 40% and significantly boosted customer engagement by giving them a fit they can trust.

Anthony Kwok (right), CEO and Co-Founder of ZILIO

Helping People Stop Second-Guessing Their Bodies

For Anthony, this mission is personal. He knows that standard size charts often fail people with diverse backgrounds and body types, including many in the Asian community. His goal is to make sizing “invisible” so that people can focus on their style instead of their anxiety.

“Fashion is deeply emotional, and a bad sizing experience can stop someone from exploring style altogether,” Anthony explains. “ZILIO exists to navigate that complexity and give people clarity and confidence, regardless of body type or background.”

With $500,000 in funding and awards like the B&T 30 Under 30, Anthony is proving that a kid with a big imagination can change a global industry. Whether it’s through his upcoming 3D virtual fitting rooms or his work with major brands like Rebel Sport, he is making sure that the next time you shop online, you’re buying a piece of clothing that actually fits your life.

Discover more about Anthony Kwok here:

📍LinkedIn📍Instagram

Learn more about ZILIO here:

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From War Survivor to Literary Leader: The Remarkable Rise of Amy M. Le, CEO of Quill Hawk Publishing

Amy M. Le, CEO of Quill Hawk Publishing, has built her life around stories that matter. Not the polished kind that skip the hard parts, but the honest ones shaped by loss, survival, and growth. Her journey reflects how personal history can quietly become a source of strength.

Every stage of Amy’s life pushed her to adapt and redefine what success looked like. She learned early that resilience is not loud or dramatic, but steady and intentional. Over time, those lessons shaped the way she approaches both writing and leadership.

Today, Amy’s work centers on creating space for voices that are often overlooked. Through publishing and community-building, she helps others turn lived experience into stories that resonate far beyond the page.

 

Photo courtesy of Amy M. Le, CEO of Quill Hawk Publishing

Born in War, Saved by Courage

Amy M. Le was born during the final months of the Vietnam War, a period defined by intense fear and systemic instability. As an infant, she faced a life-threatening heart condition that put her future in jeopardy before it had truly begun. Because medical resources were scarce in a war zone, her survival was never a guarantee.

Driven by a mother’s fierce love, her family made the harrowing choice to flee Vietnam in search of safety and essential medical care. This escape carried enormous risks, yet it was fueled by an unwavering hope for a life free from conflict. That courageous decision ultimately changed the trajectory of Amy’s life, setting her on a path toward a new world.

Photo courtesy of Amy M. Le (far right), CEO of Quill Hawk Publishing

A New Life and a Turning Point

Their journey eventually led them to Seattle, where Amy underwent the life-saving heart surgery she so desperately needed. This successful procedure gave her much more than physical health; it provided a second chance and a profound sense of purpose. With this renewed vitality, she grew up determined to make the most of every opportunity her new home provided.

Following this recovery, Amy spent over twenty years navigating the high-pressure tech industry to build a stable and successful career. However, the trajectory of her life shifted once again when she faced the devastating loss of her mother. In the wake of this grief, she turned to writing as an essential lifeline to heal her heart and rebuild her sense of identity.

Photo courtesy of Amy M. Le, CEO of Quill Hawk Publishing

Turning Story into a Mission

That personal healing became The Snow Trilogy, a powerful book series telling the true story of her family’s escape from Vietnam and their new life in America. The books resonated deeply with readers who saw their own stories reflected in its pages. What began as personal healing became a collective connection.

Inspired by that impact, Amy founded Quill Hawk Publishing, a hybrid company built to empower authors without stripping away their creative freedom. In just three years, the company has grown to support 70 authors from Seattle to Sydney, proving that no matter where you begin, you can always rewrite your story and help others tell theirs too.

Discover more from Amy M. Le here:

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Learn more about Quill Hawk Publishing here:

📍Website

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4 Creative Ways Trysen Kaneshige Uses Art to Keep Aloha Alive

Some artists create for attention or fleeting trends, but Trysen creates with intention, guided by a deep sense of responsibility to the culture that shaped him. Growing up in Hawaiʻi, he learned that Aloha is not just a feeling, but a way of living rooted in care, respect, and connection.

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1. Reviving Local Stories Through Murals

 

Photo courtesy of Trysen Kaneshige, Founder of Inspire to Create Media

At the core of Trysen’s work is listening. On Kauaʻi, he spends time learning from residents about their histories, struggles, and sources of pride before creating any artwork. This approach reflects the values he also brings into Inspire to Create Media, where storytelling always begins with people.

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2. Designing With Aloha in Mind

 

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Aloha influences how Trysen collaborates, how carefully he considers each element, and how much intention goes into every decision. Design, for him, is about respect as much as aesthetics. That same mindset shapes the design work produced through Inspire to Create Media. 

Whether creating branding, apparel, or custom visuals, his goal is to make work that feels warm and grounded. Each piece is designed to reflect care, balance, and a sense of home rather than fleeting trends.

 

3. Empowering Youth and Community Spaces

 

Photo courtesy of Trysen Kaneshige (fourth from left), Founder of Inspire to Create Media

Beyond client work, Trysen uses both his art and his studio to invest in the next generation. Through partnerships with schools and wellness programs, Inspire to Create Media supports projects that turn shared spaces into places for expression and growth.

By involving young people in the creative process, he helps build confidence and identity. These initiatives focus less on the final product and more on giving youth a voice and a stronger connection to their roots.

 

4. Building a Global Bridge From Island Roots

 

Photo courtesy of Trysen Kaneshige, Founder of Inspire to Create Media

While his work is deeply rooted in Hawaiʻi, its reach continues to grow beyond the islands. Through collaborations with global brands like Volcom and OluKai, Trysen shares an authentic island perspective with a wider audience.

These partnerships amplify his message without compromising its foundation. By staying grounded in culture, he shows that it is possible to connect with the world while remaining true to where you come from.

 

Photo courtesy of Trysen Kaneshige, Founder of Inspire to Create Media

 

Carrying Aloha Forward

At its core, Trysen’s work—through his art and his studio, Inspire to Create Media—is an ongoing act of care. Through each project, he honors his home, uplifts his community, and uses creativity as a way to carry Aloha forward with intention, respect, and lasting impact.

More than anything, his work reflects a belief that culture is something you actively protect and pass on. By choosing collaboration over ego and meaning over trends, Trysen ensures that Aloha is not only preserved, but lived, felt, and shared with future generations.

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From Jackie Chan’s Assistant to Building Paire: How Nathan Yun’s Vision for Better Essentials Became a $15M a Year Brand

Nathan Yun did not start his career thinking he would one day build a consumer brand. His early years were spent on film sets and in editing rooms, learning how stories are shaped and how audiences respond to them. Working as an assistant to Jackie Chan gave him a front-row view of storytelling at its highest level. He watched how a single film could reach millions of people and create a shared emotional moment across cultures.

Yet over time, he noticed something that stayed with him. The inspiration was real, but it faded quickly. Once the credits rolled, people returned to their usual routines. That contrast made him question what lasting influence really looked like. Was it found in big, unforgettable moments, or in the small things people interacted with every day?

Paire grew out of that question, built not around trends or marketing tactics, but around everyday essentials, starting with socks. If stories could move people for a moment, Nathan believed products could shape how they lived every day.

From Film Sets to Daily Habits

Nathan came to understand that while stories stay with people selectively, habits are formed through repetition. Clothing, especially everyday essentials, plays a quiet but constant role in daily life. When something feels uncomfortable or wears out too quickly, people notice it immediately, even if they never say it out loud.

This insight marked a turning point. Nathan no longer wanted to create something people felt for a moment. He wanted to build something they could rely on every day. From the beginning, Paire was shaped around that idea.

Instead of chasing trends, the brand focused on fit, fabric, and longevity. The goal was simple: to make essentials people would reach for again without thinking.

Nathan Yun (right), Founder of Paire

Learning How to Build Before Building His Own

Before launching Paire, Nathan spent five years at furniture startup Brosa, where he learned what it takes to grow a business beyond an idea. As the company expanded from a ten-person team to more than one hundred employees, his role evolved from content creation to leading brand and marketing.

During that time, he saw how forecasting affected inventory, how data guided growth, and how pressure increased as operations scaled. He also witnessed what happened when demand moved faster than systems, and how costly it could be to build those systems too late.

Those experiences shaped how Nathan approached entrepreneurship. He did not want to build Paire on instinct alone. He wanted a clear understanding of supply chains, margins, logistics, and customer behavior before committing to his own brand.

Nathan Yun (far right), Founder of Paire

The Trip That Made the Mission Personal

The purpose behind Paire became clear during a trip to India. Away from polished storefronts and online campaigns, Nathan saw the fashion industry in a very different light. He witnessed environmental damage near production sites and spoke with workers whose livelihoods depended on high-volume manufacturing.

“That experience made it clear something needed to change,” Nathan explains. What stayed with him most was how disconnected these realities were from everyday shopping habits.

Much of the damage he saw came from clothing treated as disposable. When he returned home, Nathan reached out to his longtime friend Rex, a textile expert. Instead of launching a wide range of products, they chose to start small. The focus was on improving a single item and making it last.

Nathan Yun (left), Founder of Paire

Earning Trust Through the Product Itself

Nathan understood that values alone would not earn loyalty. The product had to prove itself in everyday life. The team spent months refining fabric blends, improving breathability, and testing durability through repeated wear and wash cycles.

Pricing a pair of socks at twenty-four dollars came with risk. Most consumers were used to buying socks cheaply and replacing them often. But once people tried Paire, many returned. Nearly seventy percent became repeat customers, not because of marketing, but because the product became part of their routine.

By focusing on quality and longevity, Nathan Yun built a $15M-a-year brand that shows meaningful change does not always arrive loudly. Sometimes, it begins quietly, through the simplest things we rely on every day.

Follow Nathan’s journey:

📍 Website
📍 Instagram | LinkedIn