In today’s busy world, we try to save as much time as we can. So, even a second wasted annoys us to no end.
Especially when it comes to website loading, we get even more frustrated with it.
The slow loading of a website affects its search rankings too as speed is an important determinant.
According to a study by akamai, about 47% of customers want the websites to be loaded in as little as a second. This also has an impact on sales of e-commerce websites such as Amazon, as even a one-second delay can easily lead to a $1.6 billion loss.
Even the best websites take about 3 seconds or so to load.
While browsing on phone, the average load time is 2.594 seconds and on a desktop, it is about 1.286 seconds.
Even then, 78% of the top 100 websites take 3 seconds to load, which can reduce conversion rates considerably.
While one might not be worried about increasing their website’s speed, it’s recommended since it is a make-or-break deal situation for a customer.
If your competitors have slower loading websites, people will flock over to yours and it will help you in increasing conversion rate.
In any way, it is obvious that website speed plays an important role when it comes to its ranking on any search engine.
So, it is important to address the issues that slow it down.
Listed below are a few of the major reasons that can cause these issues and also how you can deal with them:
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1. Heavy use of CSS and JavaScript
This is one of the most common reasons why your website might take ages to load.
These help in styling and adding certain functions to your website, which might increase its load.
It often happens due to the above-the-fold content on the website.
What can you do?
Well, you can move its tracking code and scripting to a below-the-fold location.
Google page speed insights first content paint or first meaningful paint will help in avoiding the slowdown of your website.
It properly analyzes the website and helps you by giving suggestions on speeding it up.
If you are working on a WordPress website, these plugins can be easily found on the head and footer scripts inserter.
2. Bad web hosting
There is a reason why people are so careful about their choice of hosting company and server.
It really does have an impact on the speed of the page. Here you can find plenty of useful options for your consideration. Selecting the wrong one can cost you your customers and ultimately sales too.
So, it is important to choose a host that will never slow down your website.
What can you do?
While selecting a host for you, make sure that you consider several factors like server response time.
Also, try not to use shared hosting if your website has a huge database to store.
Other factors include accounts per server, types of equipment among which solid-state drives are preferred, etc.
3. Poor coding standards
People hire website developers for the sole purpose of having someone write codes efficiently.
It is important to ensure that codes are written shouldn’t be huge and perform lesser functions in comparison.
So, coding standards need to be maintained during the process.
What can you do?
There are several unnecessary elements that you might come across in the coding.
All you need to do is remove them. these include unnecessary space, line breaks, formatting data that isn’t needed, and so on.
Once you get rid of them, you will see quite a boost in the website’s speed.
If you are unsure about doing it yourself, you can take the help of professional tools too.
Or you can get a professional to do it for you. Having a well-coded website works wonders in its speed.
4. Many widgets and plugins
WordPress is the go-to hosting website for many people. It also has several customized widgets and plugins that people love using.
However, not all of them are helpful as they can slow down the website.
What can you do?
Use the widgets and plugins that you actually need. Adding anything unnecessary only adds to the load of the website.
Also, it’s best to use those items that are from a reputed source.
They are usually updated and don’t add to the lag time of the website loading.
5. Hotlinking
This is more common than you think. Hotlinking means presenting images on one’s website when it’s hosted on a separate server.
When someone uses the URL of the image you have posted on their website.
This can slow down your hosting server as your resources are being used.
What can you do?
There are several conditions that you can add to your .htaccess file to prevent any kind of hotlinking.
/* Prevent image hotlinking in WordPress */ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?yourwebsite.com [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?google.com [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?twitter.com [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?facebook.com [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www.)?put-other-websites-here.com [NC] RewriteRule .(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ – [F]
These were a few of the most common issues that cause slow loading and how you can resolve them.
If you need some more help with the website speed, listed below are few tools that can help you with checking your website’s speed
Webpage test
If you are looking for a free, open-source tool to run website tests, Web Page Test is the right tool for you.
It helps in creating a custom setting for different tests that you run for your website.
Apart from you, it can be configured to test on 25 browsers, which helps you in checking which one will work best for you.
It also allows you to run multiple tests if you aren’t sure the first time.
Google pageSpeed insights
You can always trust this tool as it was developed by Google.
It accurately measures your website’s performance for all devices so that you know where you lack and where you can improve.
You get marked between 0 to 100 points and if your website scores below 50, then it means it is slow.
It is quite a helpful tool as it has three sections namely opportunities, diagnostics, and passed audits, all combined to help in boosting your website.
Conclusion
Website speed plays an important role in attracting customers.
So, one shouldn’t overlook it, rather always try their best to improve its speed in every way they can.
