There are numerous reasons why your website is slow. It could be because of the website performance and the growth of your website. Whereas, today, Google has stated that website load time has a significant effect on the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) where it plays a vital role in the search results.
It is always a nightmare, a horrible user experience, for people when a website takes a considerable time to load. This leads to a cascading effect of problems, one after another; bad User Experience spills over onto:
- Lowered Domain Ranking, and consequently, lower positions in Search Engine Results Pages
- Shorter Session time on pages, and therefore, lesser engagement with your content
- Losing visitors to competitors, who use this opportunity to establish their brand over your incapability
- Entailed costs of fixing the website, since you will have to deal with this problem; lest you lose all your online business
As you cans see there are plenty of reasons why you should focus on increasing your website speed! All your efforts to optimize On-Page, and target the right keywords, and writing SEO-friendly blog posts will be in vane if you fail to increase the speed of your website!
If you’ve never checked your website speed, you can go ahead and use this website speed test:
If you’re curious how your overall website performance look like, hit the following button:
Here are 4 reasons why your websites are slow loading despite the new design as follow:
1. web hosting Problems may cause slow loading websites
Websites load slowly because of server issues.
Here are a few ways your website hosting could be malfunctioning:
- Low quality of Server Communications (simply choosing a bad Hosting provider)
- Error in DNS (domain name system) and hosting connection
- Cheap hosting package that cannot meet your requirements
- Too many visitors coming at once and overloading the Server network
- Incompatibility between your Hosting and CMS (Website) Technology
At any rate, you need to consult an expert in web development to ensure that you are getting the right Hosting for your needs. We deal frequently with slow loading websites and fix them easily.
You can always educate yourself on what Hosting is best for you:
1.1. Solution
For better performance, you should go for the VPS server . Shared hosting is another great option; Site Ground and Blue Host are known for its excellent website server providing companies as they are the fastest servers. It would be best if you went for a better server for loading speed issues.
1.2. Recommendations
We recommend consulting an expert for professional websites and finding the best solution for you. You can combine Website and Hosting technology for a lower price and in doing so save yourself some money, while maintaining a great web performance and security. Slow-loading websites often are caused by multiple problems, rather than one. As such, you would need to hire someone to take a look at all the parameters that are causing this problem.
2. there’s no caching Tool installed
Caching is simply organizing your website data in such a way that the most available data is the most requested one. That way, users get to the desired pages quickly. Caching tools help you organize and optimize the delivery of HTML, Java Script, and CSS codes. Ultimately, your website feels faster and your users complete the desired action faster.
Hence, not having a proper caching tool is a serious blow to your website, and lowers the loading speed of websites and overall web performance. You need to have to cache your most visited web pages. Loading time will increase instantly when you start caching your data!
There are many reasons why we recommend WordPress Technology over other Website builders and Content Management Systems. One of them, of course, is Caching capability.
2.1. Solution
Using WordPress, you can install the cache plugin because it is pretty straightforward. Here are a few Caching tools to consider:
3. Large media files are present on slow loading websites
If you have large media files, that will definitely slow down your loading speed of websites, logically. Under media files, we consider:
- Images
- Videos
- GIFs
- Canvas elements (icons and illustrations)
All these files, if not properly optimized for website delivery, will eventually clutter your website, influencing negatively your site speed.
#1 First ContentFUL Paint Problems (FCP)
A prime problem caused by large-sized media files (especially images and videos) is Late First Contentful Paint (FCP).
FCP measures how long it takes a browser to load the first piece of DOM content (Document Object Model).
The DOM depends on file size, as these files are incorporated inside of codes that deliver the actual content to users. So, if the image is over 5 MB, then it takes a long time for your Hero Section to load, causing FCP problems.
#2 Largest Contentful Paint Problems (LCP)
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is how long it takes to load the largest piece of content on your page. Nine out of ten, this is an image or a video… So in many ways, LCP and FCP are highly correlated and they are both caused by large media files on your website.
Images cause problems even for the responsiveness of the website; which is the reason why responsive websites cost more than regular websites.
3.1. Solution
a. User Web-Friendly Media Format
Firstly, instead of the normal JPEG and PNG formats, you need to deliver images and videos in a Web-friendly format.
These formats are:
- WebP
- jpeg2000
- JPEG XR
Converting the files manually is a hassle. Instead, use a WordPress plugin that automatically converts these files on the go:
b. Compress Media files size
It is natural that you want to use HQ images for your website. Actually, it is recommendable. However, you need to compress these files so they don’t take up so much time to load on your website.
Using compressed images is recommended to reduce the size. You can use image compression plugins for WordPress.
Some notable plugins you need to consider are:
You may have noticed that some Caching tools are also Image optimization tools. Having one, all-encompassing plugin, is better than using multiple plugins. Many of these plugins have overlapping features, and they end up competing for file acquisition.
Try choosing the plugins that offer you all the caching and optimizations needed in one place.
C. Lazy Load
When a visitor requests a page from your server, he/she doesn’t have to see all the content available. Rather, the only piece of content needed is the one displayed on the screen. Hence, images at the bottom of the page don’t need to be loaded until the User has scrolled all the way down. This is done using Lazy Load Function.
Most of the mentioned plugins have this feature available. Go to the plugin settings and make sure your toggle it ON.
4. Many Plugins installed on your website
Slow Loading websites that take longer to load pages often do so because they are burdened by various plugins.
Installing plugins may be useful and quick for you. However, it comes with extra baggage. Each plugin carries the codes for its features and codes that are not used for the feature. Namely, the codes you are not using are for user tracking, updating, dashboard, WordPress elements, etc. None of which you really need.
Where on WordPress, you would be able to install many plugins to add functionality. But with plugins, there come many bulky lines of codes where various plugins would drag down your website and result in poor performance results for your website.
4.1. Solution
A. Install Fewer Plugins
You need to use fewer plugins on your WordPress account and delete plugins that are of no use to you.
Also, hiring a Web Developer to engineer these plugins is a very lucrative investment. For the most part, developers use plugins to avoid coding the features onto your website. However, installing the plugin, as you’ve already figured, comes with significant baggage. So, do your best to have fewer plugins, otherwise, you will end up with slow loading websites.
B. Use CDN Services
Another useful way to deal with plugins, is trying to solve the problem from outside your CMS technology. CDN (Content Delivery Networks) are Proxy servers that take your content and deliver it to users from geographically closer dummy (proxy) servers.
CDN Servers often offer extra features. They can do the following:
- Caching
- Image optimization
- Firewall protection
- Database Storage
By using a CDN service, you avoid overloading the website and your server, instead, you use an external server to complete the job for you.
We recommend:
Conclusion
The article states 4 Secrets why you see slow loading websites. Websites are slow loading despite the New Design, and it would help you to read this article carefully.
Due to lousy slow loading websites, most people usually don’t click on that website again and search for better sites. At the same time, it creates the wrong impression of the website towards people. Keep in mind, that website styling and loading speed play an essential role in creating an image for the people or in your surroundings.
We hope you have learned now how to solve the problem of slow loading websites.
Suggested Reads:
- This is how to write an SEO Friendly Blog Post
- what is one way for an entrepreneur to decrease risk?
- Top 3 Best Female Entrepreneur Website Design
- How to Use Content Marketing For Entrepreneurs
- Schema Markup SEO optimizations
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