10 Components Slowing Down Your Website
47% of users expect a maximum loading time of two seconds for an average website. In the day and age where everything is instantaneous, it’s unlikely users will wait for a slow website to load. They will go back to a search engine to find a faster one. This blog will cover the 10 factors that could be slowing down your website loading speed.
Unoptimized photos
This is usually the top culprit of a slow loading web page. When uploading a high-resolution image (which is always advised) and then scaling it down it causes your web page to be large and thus take longer to load.
To combat this use JPEG images as opposed to PNG or GIF, as JPEGs have a smaller file size. Never use files that have a file size of 1 MB or more.
If you have a slow website or are just curious to test your site’s speed there are websites that will analyze any link and tell you where slowdowns may be coming from.
JavaScript issues
JavaScript is a great program for plugins, but if you’re not careful your JavaScript plugin can actually be hurting your website loading speed.
To combat this potential problem audit your JavaScript.
In case you’re not a tech guru we have multiple staff members that know how to perform these functions. Contact us or visit us online to learn more about our web design services.
Flash content
Everyone remembers or knows Adobe Flash because it was that popup that used to came frequently in the past when you were trying to surf the web. Flash always seemed like it had to be updated, didn’t it? Well, that’s likely because it did. As websites advanced the Flash version had to be updated and now it could be the culprit of your own slow website.
Flash is somewhat outdated now and can be causing your website to slow down. You can either perform an audit of your Flash content to see what you can eliminate or simply start using HTML5 to speed up your site.
HTTP requests
If your website has many JavaScript, CSS, and images. That can be a lot of processes to request from the browser causing a slower load time.
To reduce these requests try using Sprites to reduce HTTP requests
Also consider pairing down the files on your page including images, JavaScript, and CSS.
Not Caching
Caching is the process of storing data so at a later request they load faster. This takes the burden off the server so it doesn’t have to process the same information multiple times.
Using browser/HTTP caching and server-side caching will improve your site speed tremendously.
Cluttered code
When your website has excessive styling or white space these things can cause unclean code. Removing these unnecessary things can compress the code, and thus reduce load time.
Not zipping files
gZIP compression allows you to compress the file size of the objects that commonly slow down your site speed like images, CSS, and JavaScript. This means when a user requests these things from your server they are smaller so they load faster on their end.
If you haven’t already, enable gZIP on your website.
Too many ads
Ads are great for extra revenue for many sites, but it’s not worth compromising site load speed. More ads mean more HTTP requests, especially for media-rich display ads.
To reduce clutter and improve site speed reduce the number of ads.
Not using a CDN service
A CDN service is a network of independent servers deployed in different geographic locations. They are designed to deploy information from the closest server from the requesting user. These can dramatically improve site speed.
Bad hosting
If all of the above options have been exhausted. It could be that you are using a bad hosting service. A bad host can cause your website to load slow.
Try switching hosts to a company that provides site speed support or optimized speed within their hosting bundle.
Contact Us
If you would like to outsource your web design and mobile web design contact us online or by phone. We have two locations to serve you with those specializing in web design in Las Vegas and Tampa.
