Ask anybody what tries their patience the most while browsing through a website and the answer more often than not is, by the plummeting loading speed of a site! A website’s loading speed refers to the time span required to display the contents of a web page. The loading speed of a website plays a crucial role in enhancing its user-experience and search engine ranking. As per the best of web development services, a slow-loading website always ends up resulting in instant page abandonment, as no one has ample time today to squander on a sloth site. Not only can this lead to a loss of the potential audiences, but can also flat-line the conversion rates and the numbers of existing audiences. Given this, it’s important to speed up a website’s page loading time, thus providing users with a satisfying experience. But, prior to addressing this issue, we must identify the elephants in the room in the first place to understand the root of these issues. Followings are the reasons why a website’s loading speed might falter –
The unoptimized images are bane:-
One of the commonest reasons behind a slow-loading website is the large volumes of the unoptimized images. Those high-resolution images tend to consume an extensive time slot while loading. Uploading the large snaps and subsequently scaling them down would maximize your web page’s size. As a result of this, your website would consume longer than the usual time to load. The image format must be considered for several other causes as well. Take for instance; the JPEG images are comparatively smaller than the other image formats such as GIF, PNG, etc. Given this, your website’s loading time will decrease eventually when you will use JPEG snaps rather than the GIF or PNG images.
Flash contents are the trash:-
It’s not untrue that the Flash contents are actually an amazing tool to include interactivity in your website, but they could slow down your website’s loading speed by leaps and bounds. Those bulky-sized Flash contents comprise of bigger file size, which might take a toll on the loading speed of a website. You may minimize your Flash files’ size or remove them altogether for speeding up your website. As per the web development service providers, you must rely on HTML5 alternatives to substitute the prevalent Flash content of your website.
JavaScript issues are a real threat:-
The large availability of JavaScript plug-in has made it extremely convenient for providing your website with unique and dynamic content. When implemented wrongly, the JavaScript can actually cripple your website’s loading speed. It generally takes a considerable amount of time for JavaScript and jQuery to be interpreted, executed and loaded. Hence, if you are relying on a thousand API calls for rendering the important JavaScript/jQuery data, then it might elongate the loading speed of your website.
Excessive HTTP requests are a matter of concern:-
Having a large array of CSS, JavaScript, and image files might lead to an extensive pool of HTTP requests. When your website is being visited by an audience, the browser tends to perform a great deal of requests for loading each of these files. This could eventually minimize the loading speed of your website. To reduce HTTP requests, you might take help of Sprites, etc. You can also minimize the amounts of your web page’s files to fetch an impressive result.
The plummeting usage of cache techniques:-
Do you know what is caching? Caching can play the catalyst in boosting the overall performance of your website. The plummeting usage of caching techniques can actually worsen the loading speed of your web pages as well. With aid of cached memory, you can preserve the frequently used data with a greater ease. Any request in this regard for the same content would be served from the cache memory. It can resultantly speed up the process of data revival. By implementing the HTTP caching, you can bring in a discernible boost in your website’s overall performance.
Unclean codes could cause lethal impacts:-
Another reason for a slow-loading website is the unclean coding. A large array of white spaces, excessive inline styling, unnecessary comments or empty new lines can play the culprit in maximizing the size of your website’s stylesheet. You should eliminate such unnecessary aspects from your website, so that you can easily compress the code, minimize the size of the file, and boost the loading speed of your web pages. As per the web development services, this procedure is better coined as “minifying”. If you are not so comfortable with coding et al, then you may use different tools to clean as well as minify your stylesheet files.
Aren’t you using gZIP compression?
The gZIP compression is a convenient performance win. By allowing the gZIP compression, you can instruct the server for winding up every web object such as CSS, images, JavaScript, etc. in a single container prior to sending them to a requesting browser. By minimizing the size of data, which is being transferred between your visitors’ browser and server, the compression will shorten the page loading time of your website. If you are planning to allow the gZIP compression on your site, this step should be the very first move that you must make.
Too many advertisements are passé:-
Will you be interested to squander your hardly squeezed-out time on a number of unnecessary display ads? Obviously, you won’t nod your head in affirmation! Apply the same theory to your visitors as well. There is no doubt in the fact that display ads are amazing tools to monetize the high-traffic sites. But, it must not be achieved at the cost of compromising on your audiences’ convenience. Besides pissing your visitors off, the excessive display ads can slow down your website’s loading speed as well. The most definite repercussion of bombarding your website with too many display ads would the inclusion of HTTP requests that might consume extra time for processing. Those media ads like pop-ups, interstitials, auto downloads, etc. might hurl a lot of glitches on the way to creating HTTP requests, and thus making your site absolutely unresponsive! To avoid such glitches, you must restrict the use of display ads on your website. By doing so, you can better the overall performance and loading speed of your website.
Poor hosting may hurl unavoidable hindrances:-
The web hosting services of your website can create a sea change when it’s about boosting your website’s loading speed. If your website seems to load sluggishly even when you have left no room for the aforementioned glitches, then it’s important you should involve hosting provider to seal the deal. Select a hosting provider, which can proffer you outstanding performance optimization solutions without exceeding the price of hosting.
Is your computer performing impeccably?
Have you updated your computer in the recent past? If not, then you have already left a plenty of rooms for your computer to create different issues while working on a website. Code and data can never stay static. You must update your PC to tap into the consistently evolving data and coding. Without being updated, an old computer can have troubles in rendering the advanced files with the backdated technologies.
Poor connection speed is a spoiler:-
Connection speed is generally decided by the internet plan you have relied upon. Opt for those internet providers that can provide you with a faster page load speed. This will automatically help you boost your website’s fast loading tenacity.
Inappropriate codes are the real troublemakers:-
Every website is constructed upon distinctive codes. The more complicated will be your website, the more codes will be hurled at you. Ask your web development service providers to include only the necessary codes in your website, so it can function without any impediments.
Bulky files can throttle your web page’s speed:-
The bulky files such as display ads, images, flash graphics, etc. can slow down your website. The situation could even get worse if the bulk files are not optimized for a smooth online viewing. Try not to use BMP and TIFF image files, as they can’t be optimized for the web pages such as PNG or JPEG files.
Put the blame on server location and performance:-
This concept is very simple – the farther away is your server location from your target users, the longer will your website take to load. Hence, you should pick out a server location, which is a stone’s throw away from your user base. When a user clicks on your web page’s URL link, the browser would knock at your server for the info required to get the page loaded. Only the best of servers can provide this info in an instant. The quality of your server might leave a strong impact on the hosting services of your website. Hence, you should pay well for a dedicated hosting. A dedicated server can always help your website to load speedily.
It’s time for a quick wrap up:-
In the year 2017, Google had proclaimed that a website loading speed should be given more importance in improving a site’s ranking. So, as we have moved towards the middle of 2018, we should tilt all our focus on optimizing the page speed of every website. After all, an improved page loading speed can minimize visitor abandonment rates that as a result would help in maximizing consumer conversion.