9 reasons your small biz website is slow + how to fix it

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

By Nick Brown

Having a strong online presence is one of the pillars of a successful small business. If you want to make the right first impression on a potential customer and turn it into a long term relationship, you need to have a website. A website will help you win that first impression, but only if it doesn’t take ages to load. People want quick results, fast delivery and a great visual experience. If your website is too slow to load, chances are that person you’re trying to impress online will simply click on X and close the tab. Not only does site speed affect user experience, but it also affects search engine optimisation and other factors as well.

There are several things responsible for slow site speed and we’ll outline each one and suggest how to fix them.

Poor hosting

Everything starts with web hosting, so make sure to pick the right one. If you go for the cheapest options, you might end up with a website that takes eons to load. We get it, the search for that perfect website hosting service might be too complicated because there are too many. But, you need to consider the amount of traffic you might get and choose the hosting provider accordingly. Also, make sure your hosting provider offers upgrades so you won’t have any trouble upgrading your package. Better hosting leads to having a faster website that can accommodate all that traffic and turn leads into customers.

You don’t have a caching plugin

Caching plugins can reduce loading speed because some elements of your website have to load each time while some elements are static. This means that these elements remain the same every time so they can be loaded from cached memory. Take the advantage of this option by installing the right caching plugins on your website.

You don’t use a CDN

CDN is an acronym for Content Delivery Network. CDN is helpful because it helps your website load fast by loading its content from one of the servers closest to the visitor of your website. By utilising this network, your website copies are stored across the globe on multiple servers. Using CDN is another step to ensure your website loading speed is optimal.

Images aren’t optimized

This is probably one of the most common reasons why a website takes ages to load. The images used across the website take too long to load because these aren’t optimised. Either this, or there are simply too many images. Even though images, videos and other visual elements are there to engage visitors, what’s the point of having them if the user won’t wait for the images to load. Bear in mind if the images on your website aren’t optimised, the chances are that the entire website isn’t search engine friendly. You can team up with a professional SEO agency Sydney has to offer to fix this and other optimization issues.

The website code is too heavy

Another common issue with website speed is caused by unclean code. If you suspect that the website code is simply too heavy, that there are unnecessary elements, blank spaces, empty lines, do a website code audit. Unnecessary and unoptimised code can delay website loading speed. Try to make your website as simple as possible while keeping all essential elements that add to user experience and fast loading time. Anything else that is not necessary should be removed.

There are numerous plugins

You don’t need every plugin there is to have a functional and user-friendly website. Plugins can help you manage your website with ease, but too many installed can kill your loading speed. You just need the right ones that are optimised for optimal performance. One of the ways to avoid this issue along the road is to research the plugins you wish to install. Check whether there are lighter versions so you won’t weigh your website down. Additionally, make sure to update plugins regularly to avoid any conflict with website loading speed. Also, if you stop using a plugin, make sure to remove it from your website.

Too many redirects

Page redirects can be another reason why your website takes ages to load. On one hand, redirects are a great option because they will take the user to a page with relevant content instead of a broken page. If your user ends up on a broken page, the chances are high that they will completely leave your website. But, if you clean up unnecessary redirects and look into your website structure to optimise it, you can avoid these issues. If you want to increase your website’s performance, clean up unnecessary redirects to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Too many ads can affect the load speed

Ads, pop-ups or other elements that take time to load can slow down your website. Each time you get a new website visitor, these elements take time to load. Even if it’s just a second, your website has to communicate this request with a server. This means that the higher the number of ads, popups or other elements, the longer the loading speed. This is because your website’s server has to communicate with other servers to load these elements. Furthermore, this can increase the loading speed so stick to a rational number of ads on your website.

Some files are missing

It can happen that your WordPress is missing an element or some files. If this is the case, your website might take longer to load because it’s trying to access these files. After a while, this request will turn out to be a 404 error. In other words, a 404 error means that the files can’t be found or accessed. The solution to this issue is to restore your website for backup and fix these missing files.

If your website takes too long to load, try looking into all of the reasons we’ve listed above. These will help you easily identify issues you can fix and other suggestions you can implement to have a fast loading website.

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Nick Brown is a blogger and a marketing expert currently engaged on projects for Media Gurus, an Australian business, and marketing resource. He is an aspiring street artist and does audio/video editing as a hobby.

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