Mystery Solved: 4 Reasons for Slow Loading Web Pages
People spend a few seconds on any given web page, looking for a reason to move on to the next. Today, instant gratification is expected and it’s left businesses with a fraction of time to grab their attention.
Keeping your audience on the page will require speedy load times on all pages across your site. Slow loading web pages perform poorly, sending people off in search of a quicker, more satisfying solution to their problems.
Below, we’ll go over four causes to your website’s slow loading speeds.
Top Reasons You Have Slow Loading Web Pages
Retaining visitors means keeping your web pages zippy, there’s no way around it. Here are the potential issues holding your website back from peak performance:
1. The Server
When visitors find your website online, they’re actually accessing information hosted by a web server. This server can be near or far from the actual company headquarters and still allow people to access the website around the world.
The problem many companies face is the issue of a shared server.
When a server hosts multiple websites, they essentially split up their loading capabilities between their customers. That means people visiting multiple sites on the same server affect loading speeds for all sites hosted.
Your solution could be to invest in a host who uses a Content Delivery Network (CND). This type of network helps users access high-traffic websites quickly with the help of multiple servers dispersed in various geographic locations.
Otherwise, you may just need to find a better server or host, or move over to your own dedicated server.
2. Oversized Images and Video
When a website loads an image onto a page, it has to recall every pixel from its memory bank. In a small space on your website (such as a banner or sidebar image), wallpaper-quality images are excessive and can slow things down.
All that rich color and quality has to be translated over to a small space, even if the final image is a fraction of the original.
In fact, the greater the difference between image size and the dimensions it’ll appear as, the longer it will typically take to load.
3. One (or More) Plugin Too Many
Add-ons and plugins can enrich a site by adding more complex function or greater capability across all your web pages. Unfortunately, too many plugins can also muddy your site’s loading speeds.
Adding more functionality to your website (such as contact-us boxes and folding images) can be great for improving business.
However, you should be careful not to run too many add-ons or plugins, as browsers we’ll need to juggle each when loading a page.
Complex plugins “improving” your site won’t go very far if people don’t wait around for them to load. You may also want to check that all your plugin updates are, in fact, up-to-date.
4. Excessive or Poorly Written Code
Older websites or current websites trying to keep up while using older code will inevitably suffer poor loading speeds. In order to keep up with audiences today, websites must use current code and leverage new ways to cut corners.
Poorly-written code is typically dense and unnecessarily crowded with commands. It may rely on old-fashioned methods of achieving a “modern” look.
This makes loading pages difficult for web browsers as they spend more time recalling excessive or outdated commands.
Web Design and Cyber Solutions
Slow loading web pages aren’t a company’s only cyber worries. If you’d like to stay on top of the online market with a powerful, effective and speedy website, you’ll need a little help from the professionals.
You’re in luck!
The team at Jonesen is dedicated to providing industry solutions to common cyber problems for many business types. Check out the Jonesen blog today or contact us to learn more!