Did you know that 53% of site visitors will leave a website if it’s slow to load (takes longer than three seconds)?
As technology presents itself in more and more areas of our lives, our patience for slow things is growing thinner by the day. And since being in business for yourself is hard enough, why not give yourself every advantage, right?
That’s what today’s blog post is all about.
If your website is performing sluggishly at best, try the following five tips to get things loading fast and furiously.
You just might surprise yourself with how zippy things can get!
Tip #1: Check your images
When it comes to culprits that slow down your website, images are typically at the top of the list. Use these image smart tips to strip down your images to a lean and speedy format.
- For all photographs, use JPG instead of PNG format files. When photographs are in PNG format (you’ll know because their file name will end in .png instead of .jpg or .jpeg) they are MUCH bulkier and take a whole lot longer to load.
- Resize your images to be just as wide as they need to be on your website and no larger. To give you a general sense, a photograph that will take up 100% of the website width on a desktop computer should be 2000 pixels wide, a photo that will take up 50% of the website width should be 1000 pixels wide, etc.
Check out my image resizing and cropping video tutorial for more!
Tip #2: Check your videos
When it comes to videos on your website, you don’t want to upload your videos directly to your website and/or host. This can put a lot of undue stress on your server, slowing down your site. Instead, upload any videos you want to display on your website to YouTube or Vimeo and embed them from there. This way, YouTube/Vimeo is handling the performance of the video, allowing your site is load faster!
Tip #3: Check your (WordPress) plugins
If you have a WordPress website, it’s all too easy to forget about old plugins that you’re no longer using. One of the fastest and easiest things you can do to speed up your WordPress site is to go to your plugins page in your WP admin and deactivate AND delete any that you are no longer using. Not sure which plugins are in use? Check with a website designer/developer – they should be able to help you out.
Tip #4: Check your fonts
How many different fonts do you have on your website? For each font that you display, your website has to load those font files on the backend (and keep in mind that for bold, italic, or bold italic, those need their own separate files!). For this reason, as well as because too many fonts can give a website a discombobulated and chaotic appearance, I recommend using two fonts, or three at the most. For more on choosing your fonts, check out my post Fonts 101 which includes everything you need to know!
Tip #5: Check your hosting company
If you’ve tried all of the above with little to no results, then your website hosting company may be at fault. If you have a WordPress website, I recommend you consider a “WordPress managed” hosting company, which means a hosting company that ONLY hosts WordPress websites. WP Engine and FlyWheel are both good. If you are ever looking for assistance migrating your WordPress website to a new host, that is something I provide. Get in touch with me for a quote.
In Closing
Having a website that is slow to load is downright frustrating. But don’t give up! There are lots of things you can try and help is all around. Good luck!
Great to know and consider. Thank you. Lu