What Are the Top 5 Reasons for a Slow Website?

They say that if a web page does not load within three seconds, most visitors will likely abandon it. Web users want information quickly, and, if a web page does not load in three seconds or less, their patience tends to wear thin. If your website takes forever to load, what is the reason? Figuring out what slows down your website and how to remedy the issue can significantly impact your business’s online presence.

There can be many reasons why your website fails to load promptly. Here are five of them:

1. Unoptimized images

Too many unoptimized images can hurt your page load performance. Since every multimedia file on your website loads bit by bit, unduly large files can consume big bits in your page load time. The solution is easy: reduce the size of the images on your website using lossless compression, or by using a format such as webp that dramatically lowers the file size of an image. This not only improves the performance and speed of your website but also compresses images without any perceived loss of quality.

2. Too many HTTP requests

Our second offender for slowness can come from too many HTTP requests. An HTTP request has to do with what is on the page that needs to be downloaded other than text. Images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, and other fancy components can all lead to a slower load time for your website. To fix this, ask your website design agency in Winnipeg to limit the number of HTTP requests on each web page by reducing the number of files on your pages, and minifying your CSS and Javascript files that are downloaded.

3. Too many plugins

Having too many plugins or add-ons – or even a few weighty ones – can also cause your website to load sluggishly. This is because your website would require more files to be pulled up from your visitor’s browser to display the content on the page. For example, if you have a flash video on your website, it will require your visitor’s browser to have an Adobe Flash Player plugin installed. Remove all unnecessary plugins and add-ons to fix the issue. A good idea is to have all Flash replaced with HTML5.

4. Scripts are not at the bottom of the website

When you do not have your scripts at the bottom of your web pages, they block parallel downloads. This results in your page loading slowly, and that ever-important 3-second rule gets violated. Ask your Winnipeg web development and design partner to move your scripts to the bottom of the page so that they are the last thing to load.

5. Too many cookies

HTTP cookies can be used for many different reasons, such as authentication and personalization. This information about the cookies is exchanged between the HTTP headers of web servers and browsers. For this reason, it is crucial to keep the size of cookies as minimal as you can to lessen the impact of the user’s time and thus lessen the time it takes for your web page to load. Again, several other factors may be involved in decelerating your website, but the five mentioned above are almost always among the culprits. Doing some small tweaking in your website design in Winnipeg can have a huge effect on your website’s speed and ensure that the golden “3-second” rule is observed.

Professional Website Design Services in Winnipeg

As a leading web design company in Winnipeg, Dynamite Design can help you create a website that consistently runs at top speed and delivers an optimal user experience. Give us a call at 204-299-3818 or contact us online to learn more about what our website design services can do for your business.