Better Site Speed: Top 5 Web Hacks to Supercharge Your Website’s Speed

Why is site speed important? Here’s something that might surprise you – 53% of visitors leave websites taking more than 3 seconds to load. Your website could be losing half its potential visitors before they even see what you offer.

Yet most website owners cling to basic speed tricks that barely make a dent in loading times. What are the real speed optimisation techniques that actually work? Not just the usual “compress your images” advice you see everywhere. Let’s talk proper, advanced methods that top developers use to keep their websites lightning fast.

Let’s look at seven lesser-known speed tricks that genuinely work. These are not your typical optimisation tips. They’re proven techniques we’ve seen make real differences to website performance.

Hidden Trick #1: Implement Resource Hints for Predictive Loading

This is absolutely one of the most important things you can do for site speed in 2025. While everyone’s busy compressing images, there’s this clever little trick called resource hints that most people completely overlook.

What Makes Resource Hints So Special?

Think of resource hints as giving your browser a heads-up about what it needs to load next. Instead of waiting for your browser to figure things out on its own, you’re basically saying “Hey, you’ll need this stuff soon, so get ready!”

This could get a bit technical and should ideally be done by a professional. Resource hints work by telling browsers what to prepare for. It’s like having a shopping list before going to the store. You’re not just randomly grabbing things, you’ve got a plan.

Here’s what we can do with different types of hints:

• DNS-prefetch: Does background DNS lookups while users browse
• Pre-connect: Sets up early connections to other servers
• Prefetch: Downloads stuff you might need later
• Preload: Grabs high-priority resources right away
• Prerender: Gets pages ready in the background

Watch Out For These Common Mistakes

Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Don’t go overboard with preload – More isn’t always better. Stick to 3-4 resources max
2. Don’t preload stuff you won’t use quickly – Chrome actually warns you about this
3. Remember the cross origin attribute – Missing this means double downloads for fonts
4. Don’t pre-connect to everything – Unused connections waste resources
5. Always use the ‘as’ attribute – Skip this and you’ll get double downloads

Resource hints work best when you focus on the stuff that really matters – like fonts in your CSS files or images loaded through JavaScript. Get this right, and you’ll see some serious improvements in your site speed.

Hidden Trick #2: Leverage Browser Paint API for Faster Rendering

Ever wondered how browsers actually put everything you see on screen? Most developers focus on server stuff, but here’s something interesting – the Browser Paint API lets you control exactly how things appear on screen. This makes a huge difference to your site speed.

What’s Actually Happening When Your Browser Paints?

Painting happens after your browser sorts out the DOM, CSSOM, and figures out where everything goes. It’s literally drawing every bit of text, color, image, and border pixel by pixel.

Two really important things to watch here:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP) – This measures when your visitors first see something on screen (could be text, images, whatever)
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This tracks when your biggest above-fold element finishes showing up

Google’s got some clear ideas about what’s good enough. They want your FCP under 1.8 seconds and LCP under 2.5 seconds. Why? Because these numbers show when people actually feel like your site’s responding.

Your browser needs to paint stuff when:

• The page first loads
• Something in the DOM changes
• Styles get tweaked
• Things start moving

And get this – even without touching the DOM or CSSOM, you might still need painting for things like GIFs, canvas stuff, or CSS animations.

How Paint API Makes Your Site Speed Faster

Here’s where it gets interesting. The CSS Paint API (part of something bigger called Houdini) lets you create images right in the browser instead of loading them as files. Let’s break down why this is brilliant:

First up, you’re cutting down on HTML bloat. Instead of piling on elements to create effects like ripples, you can do it all with Paint API – no extra DOM elements needed.

Second, you’re dealing with way fewer bytes compared to using image files or complex HTML structures. Less stuff to download means faster loading – simple as that.

Third, Paint API creates images exactly when and how you need them. Unlike regular background images, these automatically fit whatever size you need, even on those fancy high-density screens.

Hidden Trick #3: Adopt HTTP/3 and QUIC Protocols

Let’s talk about something most people overlook when trying to speed up their websites. While everyone’s busy tweaking front-end stuff, the real magic happens at the protocol level. HTTP/3 is the biggest change we’ve seen in web protocols for years, and it’s completely different from the old TCP approach.

Why HTTP/3 Changes Everything

So what makes HTTP/3 special? It uses something called QUIC instead of the traditional TCP that websites have used forever.

The biggest win with HTTP/3 is how it handles lost data packets. With HTTP/2, if one packet goes missing, everything stops until it’s found again. It’s like a traffic jam where one stopped car blocks all lanes. HTTP/3 is smarter – it keeps other content moving even if some packets get lost.

We’ve seen connection speeds improve by up to 33% compared to HTTP/2. This really matters when people switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data on their phones.

Here’s what else HTTP/3 brings to the table:

• Zero round-trip time: Return visitors get instant connections – no waiting around
• Built-in encryption: Everything’s secure by default
• Smart connection handling: Keeps working when switching networks
• Multiple data streams: Everything loads independently

Real Results We’ve Seen

The numbers don’t lie. Google found pages load 8% faster on desktop and 3.6% faster on mobile. For users with slow connections, it’s even better – up to 16% faster.

Here’s something really interesting – video streaming improved massively in places with spotty internet. In India, for example, videos stalled 20% less often.

Wix tested this across millions of websites and found connections started 33% faster. They also saw their Largest Contentful Paint improve by 20% – that’s half a second faster.

Watch Out For These Things

Before jumping into HTTP/3, keep these points in mind:

First up, you’ll need UDP port 443 open. Lots of firewalls block this by default, so check your server settings.

Not all browsers play nice with HTTP/3 yet. Chrome, Firefox, and Edge work great, but Safari needs some extra setup. Always have a backup plan ready.

Don’t forget, the first connection usually starts with HTTP/2 before switching to HTTP/3. You’ll need both working properly. Finally, HTTP/3 needs more server power than older versions. Make sure your server can handle it if you get lots of traffic.

Hidden Trick #4: Implement Advanced Image Optimisation Techniques

Let’s talk about images. They’re usually the heaviest part of any website. Sure, everyone knows about basic image compression, but there’s so much more you can do to speed up your site.

Going Beyond WebP – The New Image Formats

Remember when WebP was the exciting new thing? Well, now we’ve got even better options. AVIF is absolutely crushing it with file sizes. We’re talking 50% smaller than JPEG while keeping the same quality.

JPEG 2000 does this neat trick where it shows a lower-quality version first, then improves as it loads. For logos and graphics, we still love SVG – it stays crystal clear no matter how much you resize it.

Here’s what we recommend for most websites:

• AVIF for your main images, it’s the best at compression.
• WebP as backup, more browsers support it.
• JPEG/PNG as last resort

AI Tools Making Images Faster

Tools like Optidash are getting really good at shrinking image sizes while keeping them looking sharp. Some tools like Deep-Image.ai can actually make images look better while making them smaller. VanceAI uses some clever AI tricks to enhance photos too.

Making SVGs Work Harder

Here’s something most people miss: SVGs often have lots of unnecessary stuff in them. We’ve seen file sizes drop by more than 50% just by cleaning them up.

What works best for SVGs:

• Keep paths simple
• Skip the fancy texture brushes
• Use basic shapes where you can
• Clean out unnecessary code

With gzip compression, you can shrink a 1.2KB SVG down to 0.5KB. That’s a huge difference when you’re trying to speed up your site.

Hidden Trick #5: Use Intersection Observer for Smart Loading

What about scrolls? Every time someone scrolls, these things fire off hundreds of times per second. It’s like having a hundred people shouting at your browser at once. But the Intersection Observer API changes all that.

Why Intersection Observer Makes Such a Big Difference

Instead of constantly checking everything on scroll, Intersection Observer only pipes up when something important happens, like when an element becomes visible. It’s like having a smart assistant who only interrupts when necessary.

• No more scroll performance nightmares
• Way fewer calculations happening in the background
• Smoother scrolling
• Your page stays buttery-smooth at 60fps

Switching to Intersection Observer can cut your JavaScript processing time by 90% on scroll-heavy pages. That’s not just a small improvement – it’s huge.

Let’s Wrap This Up

Site speed is not just about basic tricks anymore. These five techniques show there’s so much more to modern site speed than just compressing images or minifying code.

These are not just small improvements: they’re game-changers.

Some of these tricks need proper technical know-how and we’d definitely recommend getting help with those. But others you can start using right away.

Ready to make your website lightning fast? Give We Get Digital a call. We’ll help you pick the right speed tricks for your site and get them working properly. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes. Give us a call or book a meeting with our experts today!