When it comes to a website template, the number one thing that you should care about is the site’s loading speed. It is easy to lose your focus on other things and not optimize your website. This can easily lead to bad website performance and impact both SEO and user experience. Loading speed will also affect bounce rate and increase revenue.
In today’s article, we will discuss the factors that affect the loading speed of your website. We will also provide solutions to the factors. So, without any delay, let’s get started.
1. Web Hosting
A website can have a slow loading speed because of its web host. A web host provides the server to host the website. A good website host will invest in their infrastructure and ensure that their hosted websites perform optimally. However, that’s not the case with all web hosts out there.
As an owner, your first job is to check out the response time of the server. You can do so with the help of Pingdom. If it takes a lot of time for the first response to come from the server, it is time to contact the support.
Poor loading speed can also happen because of shared hosting. In that case, the only choice you have is to upgrade to a higher hosting package or simply switch to a better hosting provider. One more thing you can do is to look out for web hosting reviews before making a choice. Only build your personal website on a good hosting platform.
2. HTTP Requests
HTTP Requests can also slow down a website. So, what exactly is an HTTP request? An HTTP request happens when a browser requests something from the server. It can be a web page, an image or a form. Typically for a website to load, the web browser sends a lot of HTTP requests. Normally, a website takes around 30+ resources to load properly. On top of that, only 4-8 connections are permitted per domain by browser simultaneously.
In short, it will take multiple round trips to render a website. This can lead to slow website loading time.
To solve this, you need to reduce HTTP requests. And, to do so, you can do the following things.
- Minify CSS/JS files and combine them: Rather than retrieve multiple CSS and JS files, you can combine both CSS/JS files and send them to the browser in a single, big file. This way, you will save precious HTTP requests.
- Reduce pictures: The best way to reduce the number of requests is to reduce the number of images on the webpage. Images are generally bulky, and they should be avoided for the most part.
- CSS Sprites: Images can be combined into CSS sprites. If you have a lot of images on your website, you can enable CSS Sprites. So, the website can load without querying the server.
3. File Size
File Size also plays a crucial role in determining the website loading time. If your website has a higher file size, your website is bound to have a higher loading time. To reduce the file size, you need to minify the HTML, CSS and JS file size. You also need to compress the image using image compression techniques. Also, make sure that you don’t upload fully-fledged videos or uncompressed images to your website.
4. CDN
Content Delivery Networks provide a way to fast load your website on different geographical locations across the world. For example, if your server is in China, and a person from the USA visits your site, your website will load slower due to the huge distance between the server and user. To rectify this issue, you need to use CDN, which provides a relay service for website loading. With CDN, anyone can access your website and experience optimal loading time.
5. Caching issues
If your website is not cached correctly, it will load slowly. So, what exactly is caching? Caching is a method by which static resources are stored in the browser for future use. This way, when your website loads in a user’s browser, it will not request the least modified resources from the server. For example, it will not ask for images, external scripts, forms, and so on. You can also set expiration headers so that the static resources expire after a time set by you.
Almost all the website frameworks support caching. CMS such as WordPress come with cache plugins that can be used to enable caching for your website quickly.
6. Poor Code Standard
Poorly written code does negatively impact the performance of a website. However, problems arise when complex queries are run on the server side due to the user’s request. A poorly coded theme or website will take more time to do a casual operation and will bring the whole website loading time down.
To solve this, you need to look for a good developer who knows what they are doing. If you are using a CMS such as WordPress, Joomla, etc., make sure that you download a professional theme with a reasonable score and good reviews. You can also check your existing site and its code by checking website loading sites such as GTMetrix.
7. Too many Plugins and widgets
Website performance is directly related to the number and quality of the plugins and widgets you are using. Too many plugins can lead to complex behavior. Also, plugins always add some processing time to the overall loading, even when they perform optimally. To ensure that your website loads quickly, try to install only the plugins that you need. Avoid plugins that are not needed or are poorly reviewed.
You should also look out for plugin reviews before you install them. Almost every popular framework or CMS comes with a plugin ecosystem; check out their marketplace, and only install the plugins that are highly rated and compatible with your website’s version.
Conclusion
Today, we went through the common factors that slow down a website. We also covered the solution to each one of the factors so that you know what to do if you are suffering from any of the issues mentioned above. If you think we missed something, don’t forget to comment below and let us know.
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