Your website serves as your permanent address on the Internet. It is where users visit to know more about your company and purchase your products or enlist your services. Aside from being informative, helpful, easy to use, and organized, its speed is also vital. Cloud hosting offers you limitless resource expansion, which is splendid to have if you have a booming website. Your website will also be safeguarded from malfunctioning servers, as it can be switched to another server if it’s performing slow. Among other Cloud hosting services, AWS comes out as the clear winner because of user understandability. In the meantime, check out Intellipaat’s course on AWS Solutions Architect to gain knowledge in cloud hosting to run a website without any hassles.
A site that is fast to load will give a positive experience to users. There are several disadvantages to a slow website, and here are some of them.
- It brings a negative user experience, which may cause them not to return to the site anymore.
- It will cause the users to abandon the site.
- It will lower the conversion rate since users may leave the site instead of converting.
- It also means loss of money as users do not convert.
- It will affect your search engine optimization ranking because it’s one of the factors considered in determining the results.
With all the negative impacts of a slow website, you must ensure that it doesn’t happen to your site. If you experience slowness, make sure to act right away. An agency offering website services can help ensure the speed of your site.
Below are some of the most common causes of a slow website and things you can do to resolve them.
Click here – This Is How to Obtain a Copy of Your High School Diploma
- Media files are not optimized
Large media files take a longer time to load. It includes pictures and videos. When a user accesses a page with these files, it takes some time to load the content if they are not optimized. Check on these media files on your site and if they have a large size, use an image or video resizing tool that will decrease their size, but not the quality.
The recommended aspect ratio for videos is 16:9. For images, ensure that it is not over 1MB. The ideal size is 500KB or lower. Also, there are file formats that are larger than the others. Use the one with a smaller size for faster loading. For instance, images saved in JPEG or JPG format are quicker to load than those saved in PNG or GIF.
- You don’t use CDN
A CDN or Content Delivery Network is a network of proxy servers strategically located in different locations to ensure quicker delivery of the site’s content to the users. If you are not using a CDN, all users will access your site from the same server, regardless of their location. For example, if your site has a US server, someone accessing outside the US may have difficulties loading the site because of the geographical location. Plus, there might be congestion in the request to access it on the same server, which may also add to the slowness.
By using CDN, a copy of your website will be saved to local servers. It will make the loading time of the site faster since users will access it on a server that is local to them. For instance, users from the UK will access the site through a UK server, instead of the US server, so it will be quicker for the content to load. Also, the traffic will not be as bad as everyone accessing the same server, which will also contribute to the site’s speed.
- Your website code is messy
Everything in the site code is read when the page loads, so unnecessary elements will add to its slowness. When coding, there might be comments, lines, white spaces, and inline styling that were left there, which you or the coder may have forgotten to remove. Check your coding and remove these unwanted factors to optimize your site.
If you are not familiar with coding or you are not confident about cleaning the code of your website, a company that specializes in website services can help you with its optimization. These professionals are trained and experienced in cleaning site coding.
Aside from a faster site, clean coding will also help with your search engine optimization. Search engines consider the proper coding of the sites and their loading time in determining their rankings. If you have a clean code that its algorithm will be able to understand easily, and your site loads faster, there is a higher chance of getting a higher ranking on the search engine results.
- You don’t use caching
It’s a technique used to save data in cached memory. If you do not use caching, all the queries or requests for access will be directed to the server. However, if a user tries to access something again that is already saved in the cache memory, it will load it from there. It will make the process quicker since it doesn’t need to load from the server.
- There are several bulky plugins on your site
Plugins have their benefits. They add functionality or features on the website, which may have not been originally there when it was created. However, too many of them or having bulky ones can cause your site to slow down.
Check all the plugins that you have on your website and remove those that you do not use anymore. Sometimes, there are plugins that you no longer use that are still there because you forgot to remove them. Also, ensure that your plugins do not cause an issue with your cache, because there are plugins that do.
- There are too many ads
You may earn from the ads on your site, but they may also contribute to its slowness, especially the flashy ones. Minimize your ads and ensure that their sizes are not too big to prevent slowness. Remember, a slow website may cost you money, as visitors may leave your site, thus missing the chance of converting them into clients and getting sales.
- Poor server performance
When a user accesses your site, it will load the content from the server. If your server is slow, it will also take time for the user to load the content of your site. Choose a reliable web hosting service provider to avoid this issue.
Do not take for granted the importance of a fast website. Make sure to monitor its performance and optimize its speed by following the tips provided above. A website services provider may also help in ensuring that your site remains fast.
Click here – How to choose the perfect furniture for your office
