Why your website loads slowly
A website loads slowly for one of four usual reasons. Each one leaves a sign you can see on your own phone.
One cause is a slow server. Another is huge photos. The other two are a pile of add-ons and a heavy design. Check the signs before you pay anyone for a fix.
Time your page first
Turn wifi off so you see what a customer on mobile data sees. Open your home page and count the seconds until the biggest thing on your first screen shows. It might be a photo or a headline.
Google rates a page as good when its largest piece of content shows within 2.5 seconds. Your count is rough, so count three times. Write all three numbers down.
Now open a page with no photos, such as your contact page. Count again. If both pages are slow, look past the photos. If only the page with photos is slow, look at the photos.
A slow server
The server is the computer that stores your site and sends it to each visitor. When it answers late, the screen stays blank at first.
Google rates a server answer time of 0.8 seconds or less as good and more than 1.8 seconds as poor. You cannot time that by eye. A long blank wait before anything shows can point to the server.
Open your plainest page. If it also waits before anything shows, ask your host about the server.
Huge photos
A photo uploaded straight from a camera or phone can be far bigger than the page needs. Big photos take longer to reach the visitor.
Watch your page load on your phone. If the text shows first and the photos fill in one by one, big photos are a likely cause.
Ask who uploaded your photos and whether anyone shrank them first. Keep the originals. A smaller copy can go on the page.
A pile of add-ons
An add-on is an extra piece your page loads on top of its own words. Each one asks the phone to load more before the page is ready.
Some add-ons show nothing on the page, so ask whoever maintains your site for the full list. You can spot the visible ones yourself. Decide whether a customer uses each one.
- Look for a chat bubble in the corner of the screen.
- Look for a pop-up that asks for your email address.
- Look for a map, a video or a slideshow.
- Look for a feed of reviews or social posts.
A heavy design
A page builder is the tool that lays out your pages. A theme is the ready-made look it starts from. Some themes carry sliders, animations and features you never use.
A heavy design can slow every page, even a plain one with a headline and a short paragraph. You cannot tell it from a slow server by eye, and that is fine.
Bring facts to the person who can fix it. Your counts and your list of add-ons are those facts.
What to ask whoever maintains your site
Share your counts and your list of add-ons. Then ask for one change at a time. Write down the date, the change and the new count each time. That way you can see which change helped.
- Ask for the server answer time of your home page.
- Ask them to shrink every photo on your home page.
- Ask for a list of every add-on and what each one does.
- Ask them to remove the add-ons you do not use.
- Ask whether your design has features you never use.
- Ask them to time the page again after each change.