Are you looking for ways to speed up your website? An often overlooked aspect of website management is how fast your website loads. When someone finds your website on Google or other search engines and clicks on it, they expect to be taken to your website as quickly as possible. If they are waiting too long for your website to load, they may cancel their search and move on. In this article, we will discuss how long it should take for your website to load, why it may be taking so long to load, and how you can make it load faster.
How Do You Determine Your Site Speed
Finding out how quickly your website loads can be quite easy. First and foremost, you can try loading your page yourself to see how quickly it opens. This can be inconclusive however because your internet speed will play a big factor in how quickly it loads. Fortunately, there are free resources available to you.
The tool GTmetrix will give your website a score based on how quickly it loads when someone clicks on it. Put your URL into the search field and click “Test Your Site.” Your score will pop up as well as recommendations the site has in regard to improving load time. In 2020, your website should take no longer than three seconds to load. If it takes longer than that, you can lose up to 40% of your visitors.
Why Is Your Website Loading Slow?
If your website is taking longer than the aforementioned three seconds to load, it’s time to figure out the reason. Websites are complicated, and many different moving parts are required to keep them afloat. These moving parts can often cause a website to load slower. Here are some of the reasons why your website is taking to load:
- Host company
- Too many plugins
- JavaScript Issues
- Excessive HTTP Requests
- Unnecessary coding
- Too many ads
No one knows your website better than you. You should have a pretty good sense of what’s causing the page to take so long to load. But how can you fix this problem?
How Can You Speed Up Your Site Loading Times?
Any of the issues mentioned above can lead to your website taking too long to load. How can you solve these issues? Here are some of the things you can do to help your website run quicker.
- Install a caching plugin – this plugin will store a cached version of the site so it doesn’t have to load the elements of the site.
- Compress images – the optimal image size should be less than 500 kilobytes or 0.5 megabytes. There are plugins that you can install that will automatically compress your images. Or, if you need to keep your plugin countdown, then you can resize the images before you upload them to the site.
- Remove unused plugins- the fewer plugins, the better. The rule of thumb is to have less than 20 plugins installed. Shoot for closer to 5 if you can. Delete any that you are not using.
- Delete extra code – when a site is created, there are many lines of coding, some of which are not necessary. A developer can go in and clean up the unnecessary coding. Also, if you are typing your content into a Word document or Google document, it can add coding that’s not necessary. To avoid this, you can type your content directly into the page or post you are creating.
These are a few of the things that a developer can do to help the pages on your website load faster.
We’re Ready to Help
If you are in need of help with your website, our team here at R5 Website Management is ready. We offer a wide range of services to help your website including services to help the website load quicker. Contact us today to find out what it is we can do for you and your business.
