If you are here means your website is dragging to load and taking more than 3 seconds to open. Today nobody has patience. The slower loading means your visitors are gone checking out your competitors whose site opens before a blink. A slow website loading not only is annoying but also costs you. As per some stats 53% of mobile users leave websites slower than 3 seconds & desktops no better at 2.5seconds on average with every second tanking conversions by 20% and satisfactory by 16%. So, loading faster isn’t just a nice-to-have, but your first impression, SEO ranking and conversion rate – all rolled into one.
A quick reality check:
- Under 2 Seconds → Perfect
- 2-4 seconds → Risky
- >5 seconds → You are losing the traffic already
Well, if your site feels slow, lagging, then here is the Good News! Most of the websites have the same problems and almost all the websites are fixable without a full rebuild. So, let’s dive in to understand why your site is slow in loading & then we will see how to fix them instantly.
Top most reasons reasons and the usual suspects why your website is loading slow:
1. Heavy Images & Media:
Problem:
Heavy images/videos = Silent Killer
Most of the time the images & video elements are directly downloaded from mobiles or cameras & uploaded directly into the site. These images generally are of very High-quality images with huge size (generally in MB). This is the killer of site making the sites load slow.
Quick Fix:
- Converting the images format to WebP instead of using png & jpeg which can cut down file sizes.
- Compress images by using the online tools like TinyPNG & ShortPixel which compresses the file sizes by 50% to 80% with zero visible quality loss.
- In WordPress use the option of Lazy Load images which loads the images or videos only when the user scrolls.
2. Too much Javascript mainly from the plugins used in wordpress
Problem:
More plugins = Killing website speed
The plugins in wordpress uses the javascript & adding more plugins means adding code & scripts and sometimes conflict between 2 or more plugins. Javascript is the heaviest on most modern websites and blocks most of the elements from loading
Quick Fix:
- Removing unused plugins & lazy-load what isn’t required on first-paint.
- Using JS minify plugins.
- Replacing heavy plugins with alternate lightweight tools & avoiding all-in-one bulky tools.
3. Slow Hosting
Problems:
Using Shared servers? This hosting type is generally many site on one server
Slow response & Frequent downtime
Fix:
- Upgrading to a better hosting server or upgrading to cloud or managed hosting.
- Check with the providers if they have fast server response time.
- Choose the server location which is close to your audience. For example if you are targeting an Indian audience check with servers whose location is within India as first preference or at least in Asia.
4. No Cache
Problems:
If cache is not cleared, your site will reload everything from the scratch every time the visitor loads. The website saves a copy of all your content and serves instantly. So reloading all elements of the same page every time visitor visits or reloading then you are wasting time & money.
Quick Fix:
- Enabling browser caching using plugins for static assets like CSS, JS, Fonts & Images.
- Using a CDN like cloudflare which alone can dramatically speed up a slow site by caching the assets at the edge closer to your visitors.
- Using server-side caching.
5. Too Many Animations & Fonts
Problems:
Animations are cool to look at, but using too many will ultimately make the websites load slow. As well as using multiple fonts can also make the website load slower
Quick Fix:
- Remove unnecessary animations especially in banner section.
- Using lesser videos without the autoplay option selected.
- Using 1 font for whole website (max 2 fonts and no more)
A quick summary of overall quick fixes to make website load faster:
- Optimizing Images, Videos.
- Deleting unnecessary & removing any unnecessary scripts.
- Upgrading with faster hosting providing faster server response time.
- Installing cache plugin to load pages faster without reloading all elements each time the same page is opened.
- Minimal usage of animations, videos & Fonts.
The Bottom Line –
Every year passing by a slow website is always like a leaky bucket, where you pour all the money into Ads & content, but losing visitors even before they see what you are giving in. So the fixes aren’t just glamorous but they are usually not that hard either. Start with taking all the measures as you go and tackle the deeper stuff when you have bandwidth.