For all the DIY website creators out there, we’ve put together this guide to help ensure that your website is loading quickly enough to retain your visitors’ interest.
We’ll cover some of the most common issues that cause a website to load too slowly and we’ve included helpful tips after each section on what you can do to fix it.
What is Website Load Time
Website load time, also commonly referred to as Page Load Time, refers to the amount of time it takes for all of the images, text and other content on a page to fully load and become accessible to the visitor.
Why is Website Load Time Important?
Most visitors to a website simply won’t tolerate slow page load times.
According to a 2024 Statistic study,
- 1 in 4 visitors would leave a site that takes more than 4 seconds to load
- 64% of dissatisfied shoppers do not visit a slow website again
- Each additional second of load time decreases conversion rates by an average of 4.42 percent (in the first five seconds).
When it comes to ideal loading time, faster is always better.
How Can I Improve Page Load Time?
The good news is, there are plenty of things you can do to improve load time. We’ve put together this speed-optimization checklist to help you locate the source of your slow load times and fix it.
Checklist: The Most Common Speed-Killers
Oversized Images
Using excessively large, high resolution images can significantly increase page size and cause a major drag on your load times.
When you purchase a nice stock photo from a website (or even upload one from your camera) the original image size will likely be quite large so that you can use the image in various applications, including print.
However, an image that looks good in print usually has a degree of detail and size that’s much too large for online use. Even if the code on your page indicates that the photo should be displayed at a smaller size, your page may still load the full size image, thus slowing down page load times.
Having oversized images on a website is one of the most common causes of slow down we see. Luckily, it’s also one of the easiest to fix.
The Image Fix
- Resize Images Before Upload: If an image will display on your website at 500px wide, be sure to resize it to 500px wide before you upload it to your site.
- General Guidelines: Most images could be under 300 KB.
- Large Background Images: Large background images might need to be bigger, but not larger than 1 MB.
- Use a Plugin to Resize: There are plugins that will run through and optimize your images if you’ve saved them at 300 DPI and 100% quality. Normally 72 DPI and 80% quality looks about the same, on most screens, but is a much smaller file size.
- Test As You Design: Test each page of your website as you’re designing it to make sure everything on the page is loading efficiently. If an image is taking a long time to load, it’s probably too big.
- Store Original Copies Offline: If you think you might want to increase the size of an image later on, store a copy of the original image file somewhere off-site. Knowing you have a backup will help you resist the urge to upload unnecessarily large files to your website.
Images Aren’t Optimized for Mobile
Mobile devices have less processing power and often slower internet connections than desktops. Downloading large images takes time, leading to significant delays.
The Mobile Fix
- Select a Mobile Friendly Theme: Most WordPress themes have built-in support for responsive images. Ensure your theme utilizes this feature.
Too Many Fancy Features
We all want a site that’s exciting to visitors but every additional feature on a website requires more time to load and visitors won’t stick around to appreciate features that take a while to load.
The Feature Fix
- Animations: Minimise use of animations and use image sliders only when appropriate.
- Videos & Images: Limit the number of videos and images on a given page.
- Fonts: Web fonts can actually slow down a page if they are loaded from external servers. If there’s a problem with that server or the connection is lacking, page times slow down. Save fonts locally (on the website) to avoid this issue.
No Caching / CDN
When a visitor opens your website in their browser for the first time, that visitor will have to wait for all of the files and images on that website to load onto their browser.
With browser caching enabled, that visitor’s browser will save a local copy of the files from your website the first time that website is opened.
This is useful because much of the information on a given page, such as the header and footer, is repeated on other pages. Once those files are saved to a visitors browser, any additional page of your website will load faster for your visitor.
The Caching Fix
- Enable Caching: Use plugin to enable browser caching
- Use a CDN: A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is a network of servers that speed up load times for websites by bringing content closer to the geographic location of the end users. If your website has a global audience, experiences periodic surges in traffic or your website delivers large media files to end users, a cdn is recommended.
Inefficient Code
The very code on your website can cause slow load times.
Bulky Coding
Unnecessary code, often caused by drag and drop page builders, can cause a page to load slowly.
Clunky Plugins
There are plenty of useful seeming plugins out there that simply aren’t well coded and can junk up your website with problematic code.
Excessive HTTP Requests
Every element on your webpage, from images to scripts, requires an HTTP request. Too many requests can bog down your site.
Unnecessary Plugins and Scripts
- Page builders with unused elements: Page builders are great tools, but many plugins add a lot of code, and sometimes people leave unused elements on the page that they don’t see on the front end of the web page.
- Redundant Plugins: Sometimes a website will have more than one contact form plugin or multiple analytic plugins that track different metrics. These redundant plugins often load extra scripts and stylesheets, adding unnecessary weight to your pages.
The Code Fix:
- Research Your Plugins: Before you add a plugin to your site, do a little research on the developer of that plugin to make sure they’re reputable. Look for plugins that have active development and community support, as this indicates a higher likelihood of quality and timely updates.
- Remove Redundant Plugins: You only need one contact form plugin and you likely only need one analytics plugin. Go through your plugin library and remove anything you’re not using.
- Minimize Social Media Plugins: It’s time consuming, and often unnecessary, to stay up-to-date on several social media channels. Pick one or two platforms that are most effective for your business and only feature icons for those platforms on your website.
- Minimize HTTP Requests: Minimize the number of HTTP requests by combining files, using CSS sprites, and reducing the number of external scripts.
- Get a Website Audit: Even if you’re DIYing your site, it’s good to have a professional review your website for both security and clean coding. Consulting with a professional before you begin can ensure you don’t spend too much time undoing mistakes later on.
Cheap Web Hosting
Shared Hosting Overload
Many hosting services offer shared hosting options in which your website would be hosted on the same server as hundreds of other websites all sharing the same resources. Shared hosting is a perfectly good option to save money. The problem is that many “budget-friendly” hosts try to stuff too many websites on one server, increasing the risk of overload. If one of those websites experiences a surge in traffic, it can overwhelm the server’s resources, slowing down everyone else’s sites.
Insufficient Server Resources
Like any computer, servers have limited processing power, memory, and bandwidth. If your hosting plan doesn’t provide enough resources, your website will struggle to handle traffic, especially during peak times.
Geographic Server Location
If your server is located far away from your target audience, it takes longer for data to travel between the server and your visitors’ browsers. Increased latency (the time it takes for data to travel) causes significant delays in page loading.
Outdated Server Technology
Older servers and software can be less efficient than modern technology. This can lead to slower processing speeds and increased load times.
Lack of Server Caching
Servers can cache web pages, which is to say that they can save a version of the web page, so that it does not have to be reloaded every time a user visits the page.
If the server does not cache the static parts of your website, then the server has to reload the entire web page every time a user visits that page.
The Hosting Fix
Find a reliable hosting service with a reputation for good customer service.
Signs of a Good Hosting Service
- They have a dedicated customer service page.
- Positive and credible online reviews.
Pro Tip: The best way to find a reliable hosting service is to ask a professional designer/developer. As a pro, they will have seen plenty of bad hosting experiences and they’ll have strong opinions on the matter.
It’s also vital to find a host that provides sufficient resources for your website. The first step is to review your website’s needs.
Determining Your Hosting Needs
- How is your site coded/built?
Eg: HTML, PHP, CSS..etc - How many files does the website contain?
Eg: PDFs, images & videos…etc - How much traffic do you typically receive?
Eg: Are there periodic and significant spikes in traffic? - What type of function does your site perform?
Eg: eCommerce uses more resources.
How to Find Out What’s Slowing Down Your Site
This list serves as a good starting place to diagnose what’s slowing down your website. Try going through each step individually to see if any changes solve the problem. If you encounter any section that feels overly technical, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.
Finding the source of your slow page load times can be tricky. Modern websites often involve layers of code and going through a process of elimination to isolate the problem takes a good bit of technical know-how.
Having a professional audit of your website is your best option for correctly identifying issues. A professional developer will not only help you remove existing speed bumps, they will also be able to offer guidance on best practices and systems to ensure your site stays up to date.