Keep reading to find out more about 4 common reasons why your website runs slowly, and some solutions that you can put in place to see better results.
1. Un-Optimised Images
Images that are considered to be un-optimised have a large file size, undescriptive file names and no alt tags, and can make your website load slower. For example, if you’ve worked hard to edit detailed and interesting images for your website using Photoshop, these are often saved as large files and all that detail might be detrimental to the site loading time no matter how nice they look. Along with this, since Google doesn’t actually see images but instead reads alt tags, Google does not know what your images are if you do not add a short description. The good news is that you can find lots of solutions including tools that you can use to compress your images before uploading them.
2. Lots Of Elements
The average webpage size was 2MB in 2015, and this has only increased over time as we enter the second half of 2022. The size of your page is affected by code, scripts, videos, stylesheets, images, and any other elements that you might have on your page. CSS is a popular language to use for websites and web pages these days, but poorly optimised CSS elements can slow your website down. If you are having trouble, a good web design agency can help you determine where you can afford to lose elements to make your pages smaller and therefore easier to load.
3. High Website Traffic
A lot of website traffic, for example from click-bait, can also be another reason why your website might be loading slowly. Although information does move very quickly, a typical website is only able to accommodate a certain number of visitors before it will begin to slow down. This number of visitors is determined by the site’s bandwidth. This refers to how much information a connection can handle in a given amount of time. More bandwidth means that information can be delivered faster, and more visitors can be accommodated for.
4. Too Many Ads
Ads can be a good way to make some extra money from your website, but they do take up space on the site in the same way as other types of content such as videos and images. Because of this, too many ads can cause your website to be slow-loading so it’s important to be careful if you are allowing third parties to advertise on your website. Not only can too many ads increase the loading time, but they can also annoy your viewers and cause further issues.
Conclusion
Slow loading time is one of the biggest killers of website success. It damages your site SEO and hurts user experience, increasing the chances of visitors going to the competition instead. If your website is loading slowly, it’s important to figure out the root issue and find the best solution.
