How Can I Optimize CSS Loading to Prevent FOUC and Minimize Render-Blocking?

Inlining styles for hero sections can really enhance performance. It simplifies things, but it can definitely be tricky to manage the overall file loading effectively. You want to find a good balance between inlining critical styles and pulling in the rest without it getting messy.

If you have a lot of styles, I suggest splitting your CSS into files tailored to specific media queries. Use the correct attributes in your link tags so the browser only loads what's necessary. I prefer keeping a global CSS for all pages and branching out into separate CSS files for specific pages when needed, but I avoid inlining for my projects.

I recommend inlining everything that's above the fold. And a little tip: instead of using Google Fonts, download and host them yourself. You can trim down a large font file by removing unused glyphs, which can drastically reduce size. For example, if your header font is always capitalized, you only need to serve a handful of glyphs instead of the entire font.