Why is my website slow to load?

A website that loads slowly can cause visitors to leave before they find the information they are looking for. Slowness rarely has a single cause. Several small factors combine to lengthen the time a page takes to load.

Most of these factors can be identified through measurement and corrected.

Common causes

• Oversized images: Images taken from a camera or phone are often far larger than the size at which they are displayed on the site. This is like folding a poster to fit it into an envelope when a postcard would do. Images should be resized to their display size and converted to modern formats such as WebP.
• Too many plugins: On WordPress sites, every plugin adds its own code and files to the page. Unused plugins, or several that do the same job, make the page heavier.
• Inadequate or crowded hosting: In low-cost shared hosting plans, many sites use the same server. This is like several restaurants preparing food in a single kitchen. At busy times, orders are delayed.
• Heavy themes and image sliders: Multipurpose themes also load the code for features the site does not use. Sliders at the top of the home page are among the main elements that delay loading.
• Third-party code: Live chat windows, social media feeds, maps, videos and visitor tracking code are loaded from other servers. Each one adds to the loading time.
• No caching: A cache is like noting down the answer to a frequently asked question instead of working it out from scratch each time. On sites without caching, the page is rebuilt on every visit.

Why does speed matter?

A large share of visitors reach a site from a phone over mobile internet. When a page is slow to open, the visitor may return to the search results and open another site.

Google also takes speed measurements into account when assessing page experience. These measurements are called Core Web Vitals. The main metrics are:

• Main content loading (LCP): How long it takes for the largest image or block of text on the page to appear.
• Responsiveness (INP): How quickly the page responds when a button or menu is tapped.
• Visual stability (CLS): Whether content shifts position while the page is loading. Text being pushed down while it is read, because an image above it loads late, affects this metric negatively.

Speed is one of the factors that affect ranking in search results. The relevance and quality of the content to the search are more decisive.

How is speed measured?

• PageSpeed Insights: Google’s free measurement tool (pagespeed.web.dev). When a page address is entered, it provides separate results and improvement suggestions for mobile and desktop.
• Testing on a phone: Where possible, the site should be tested over mobile internet rather than Wi-Fi, and on different phones. A site that opens quickly on a computer may perform differently on a phone.
• Google Search Console: The site’s Core Web Vitals report uses data collected from real visitors to show which pages are slow.

A single measurement can be misleading. It is advisable to repeat the measurement several times at different times of day.

Checklist

• Are images resized to their display size and saved in a modern format?
• Have unused plugins been removed?
• Does the theme load features the site does not use?
• Is the slider on the home page really necessary?
• Which live chat, social media feed and tracking code is actually in use?
• Is caching enabled?
• Is the hosting plan suited to the site’s traffic?
• Have the PageSpeed Insights results been checked for mobile as well?

The Piron’s approach

In website rebuild projects, the speed of the existing site is measured and the causes of slowness are identified. Images are prepared for their display size, unused code and plugins are removed, and third-party code is limited to what is needed. The platform is chosen to suit the site’s requirements.

Measurements are repeated on mobile devices before and after launch. Speed and mobile compatibility are also part of search engine optimisation work.

For information about your site’s speed, please get in touch through our contact page.