It’s crucial for a business to have a strong online presence in 2020. But, since the average person now has an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish, a slow website is almost as bad as not having one at all.

So, if your site isn’t loading as lightning-fast as it should be, you’ll need to take action as soon as possible. It all starts with understanding why your performance is sluggish.

Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about the reasons behind your website running slow.

1. Image Size

Depending on the quality of the image file, larger sizes can significantly increase the page loading time on your site. If you have multiple large, high-quality images on one page, it may not complete loading until long after the user has navigated to the ‘back’ button.

So, either optimize the image sizes or cut down on the volume of images that you use on one page.

2. Plugin Overload

Although it may be tempting to run as many plugins as possible due to the utility they provide, running too many plugins concurrently can cause a significant slowdown on your site.

Each plugin that you have activated needs to run its own script and make file requests. So, the more often these events take place, the more sluggish your site will be.

instead, use plugins that you only absolutely need in order to optimize page loading times.

3. Too Many Redirects

Redirects often double the amount of time your pages take to load since you’re essentially loading a page twice. If the average page loads in two or three seconds, doubling this amount of time could be enough for users to lose interest.

If there’s a broken or outdated page on your site that needs to redirect to another page, change how people reach the intended page. This means fixing broken links or URLs if you need to.

4. Missing Files

When a file that’s missing needs to be accessed, your site will keep searching for it until it times out. This means your page will continue to load until finally displaying an error.

As you can expect, visitors who stay until the error is displayed will likely end up frustrated.

While the reason behind missing files (and which files are missing) is variable, it can often be attributed to your site’s content management system. Restoring your site from a recent backup is likely the fastest way to resolve the issue.

Your Website Running Slow Can Be Frustrating

But it doesn’t have to be.

With the above information about your website running slow in mind, you’ll be well on your way to optimizing your site’s performance and keeping your audience on your page.

Want to learn more about how to speed up a slow site? This article has plenty of useful info.