Each business can use its website as a powerful marketing tool to interact with the prospects and convert them into customers. But the business has to optimize the website’s look, feel and performance to get more online sales and inquiries. Many enterprises nowadays use HTML5 and CSS3 to create websites functional and navigable across multiple devices and platforms. With more and more people accessing websites on their smartphones, tablets and phablets, HTML5 helps enterprises to keep the visitors engaged by creating attractive, sophisticated and responsive mobile websites. In one of my previous posts, I had discussed about various HTML5 Frameworks used to build mobile apps.

At the same time, the users have option to access the mobile websites in offline mode through HTML5’s mobile cache feature. The HTML5 developers can further create websites that deliver native audio and video without relying on any third-party tools. The standardized, clear and readable code will further contribute towards increasing the website’s search engine ranking. However, the programmers still need to explore ways to optimize the HTML5 site’s performance to help the business to get more online visitors and achieve higher conversion rate.

How to Optimize the Performance of HTML5 Mobile Websites?

Combine HTML5 with Right Web Technologies
You must combine HTML5 with the right web technologies to create a sophisticated website. AJAX can boost the performance of both desktop and mobile sites. It enables the application to fetch data from the web server without reconstructing the entire web page. So the users can see the updated and relevant information in specific parts of the page. At the same time, AJAX will further load the mobile website quickly, while updating the content progressively on the web page. You can combine HTML5 and AJAX to easily boost the mobile website’s performance.

Take Advantage of JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries
There are a number of lightweight JavaScript frameworks and libraries that help developers to create high performing websites. For instance, the developers can consider using frameworks like App.js or Angular that come with features to effectuate hybrid app development. Likewise, they can also take advantage of Marionette, Thorax and similar helper libraries provided by Backbone.js. In addition to reducing the coding time, these tools will help you to create a high-performing HTML5 site.

Store User Data Locally
The local storage feature of HTML5 enables you to create websites that store user data locally within the browser. Unlike cookies, the feature can store a large amount of data in a secure manner, without affecting the site’s performance. Also, there will not be any additional load on the server as the locally stored data will not be transferred to the web server. So you must use the local storage feature instead of cookies to keep the user data secure, along with boosting your mobile site’s performance.

Minify the Front-end Resources
You can easily improve the mobile website’s performance by minifying HTML, CSS and JavaScript files. There are several tools that help you to compress the front-end resource files. For instance, you can use minify CSS files using cssminifier, JavaScript files using JSCompress, and HTML files using Will Peavy’s HTML minifier. However, you must test the HTML5 site thoroughly after minifying the front-end resources to ensure that it functions smoothly.

Optimize Your Graphics
Nowadays, most websites use high quality and attractive graphics to keep the users engaged. But you must remember that the size of the graphic files will have a direct impact on your HTML5 website’s application. So you can easily boost the mobile site’s performance simply by reducing the size of PNG files. However, while crunching the graphic files, you need to ensure that their quality and aesthetic appeal remain intact. It is a great idea to use tools like tinypng.com to reduce the size of PNG files with almost invisible effects.

Provide Offline Support
HTML5 comes with a new feature called application cache. As the name indicates, the feature enables programmers to cache the website, and enable users to access the content without internet connectivity. Also, it results in faster loading of cached resources and reduced load on the web server. You must take advantage of the feature to boost the HTML5 mobile site’s performance. The application will also deliver richer user experience by allowing users to access information despite slow data connection or no internet connection.

Localize the Website Content
HTML5 and CSS3 will help you to create websites accessible on a variety of devices and platforms. But you must not forget that the business may use the website as a tool to reach out to customers residing in various regions. There are also chances that large percentage of the website visitors may not know English. So you must localize the language to create mobile websites that convey information to users in their native language. The language localization will also boost the HTML5 site’s performance, and make it popular through word of mouth.

Test the HTML5 Website before Deployment
Often developers forget to test the mobile website thoroughly before its deployment. But you must remember that each piece of software has flaws or defects. The defects can be either major or minor. But each flaw in the HTML5 mobile site will affect its performance and user experience hugely. So you must make and implement a comprehensive test strategy to identify and fix any all defects and performance issues. You also have option to use a number of cloud-based tools to test the site’s look, feel and performance across a wide range of platforms and web browsers.

Assess Your Website’s Mobile-Friendliness
You can use a variety of tools to check if your website is mobile-friendly. Google has also provided a great tool to help owners to assess the mobile-friendliness of their websites. In addition to conveying if the website is mobile-friendly or not, the tools further help programmers to understand how the mobile browsers will see the website. The tools further highlight the page elements that cannot be loaded quickly. The assessment will help programmers to create HTML5 pages that can be loaded instantaneously on mobile web browsers.

On the whole, HTML5 helps programmers to create responsive websites that work seamlessly with various platforms, devices and web browsers. The features and elements of HTML5 further make it easier for them to reduce the development time significantly. However, they still need to combine HTML5 with the most appropriate web technologies and server-side scripting language. Along with taking advantage of the innovative features of HTML5, the developers also need to pick the right technologies to create a great mobile website.