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Slowcoach: why your website loads slowly and how to fix it

You might be old enough to recall the days of dial-up internet, when webmasters had to be careful what they placed on their sites to prevent dragging down load times. Thankfully, today’s broadband internet is much more rapid, but this seems to have bred complacency in many web designers.

That’s a shame, because website speed now affects how that site is ranked on mobile search. If your website is sluggish, what can you do about it? Start by looking out for these potential speed bumps.

Overly large files, videos and images

Back when bandwidth was much lower than it was today, large images could be shown in chunks as a way of easing load times. However, if the much more generous bandwidth of today has led you to resist slicing up large images into multiple smaller ones, you could be paying a heavy price now.

Hence, it’d be worth shrinking the size of your current images as well as using compression software to reduce the data size of files without sacrificing the standard of their content.

Excessive plugins

Adding plugins might initially seem like a great way of easily making a website more dynamic – but, unfortunately, this ready convenience of plugins can create a new problem. Often, novice web designers might use them in place of programming to quickly add new features.

Before long, the website could end up with dozens of plugins that, however lightweight, put pressure on the server, such as through loading files that are not really needed.

Superfluous code

As we’ve made clear, a web designer shouldn’t use plugins as a substitute for rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, so to say, by writing programming code for the website instead.

However, writing such code is not something that everyone can do well. It can call for an artistic touch, so unnecessary lines and spaces can too easily build up and bog down the website’s speed. Our designers can get into that code and strip it down for you.

Too many HTTP requests

The more HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) requests made in loading a page, the longer that page will take to load. Often, an overly high number of CSS and JavaScript files on that website can be to blame, but don’t worry if we’re starting to sound technical, as our designers could trim the number of files for you without adversely affecting your site.

Not using the right web hosting

In buying your web hosting, you might have opted for a package simply because it was relatively cheap. However, cutting corners on the pricing of your hosting can be perilous for your site’s load speeds, and your host’s server might lack the proper capacity for the website.

At Webahead Internet, our services include web hosting whereby sites are hosted on quick and reliable Microsoft Windows servers.  Give our Darlington-based company a call on 01325 582112, and we can soon get your site up and running in a way conducive to pleasantly fast loading times.

Slowcoach: why your website loads slowly and how to fix it
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