15 Reasons Why Your Website Is Slow and How to Fix It

Reasons Why Your Website Is Slow and How to Fix It – One of the most important things to note is website speed, many website managers are confused when their website is slow. Are you one of them? Now there is no need to worry, because in this discussion we will explain some of the causes of a slow website.

We will not only discuss the causes, but we will also discuss some tips on how to overcome them so that you don’t experience a slow website again. But before that, we must first understand why a fast website is so important? Let’s find out!

​Reasons Why Website Load Speed ​​Is Very Important

Image: Freepik

The importance of website speed has been conveyed by Google for a long time, this is because search engines like Google are very concerned about website speed. But apart from the need to be preferred by search engines like Google, there are several other reasons why websites must be fast.

1. ​Increase Credibility

If you have a website with a low speed, then website visitors don’t just run away from the website. But they will also question the credibility of the website that you manage, especially if the website is a company website.

In fact, Neil Patel once said that 79% of online users stated that they would not return to a website that had experienced loading problems on their website.

​2. Conversion Rate

Another reason that becomes the next fact is that if you have a slow website, it is likely to experience a decrease in purchase transactions and this is very detrimental. Because of course, visitors want a fast website, so they can get what they are looking for quickly.

There is a survey where 67% of consumers in the UK and 51% in America prefer not to buy products on websites that experience slow loading.

If website visitors have to wait more than 3 seconds, we make sure your website conversion rate will be low. Knowmad also once said that the percentage could be less than 1%.

If this happens, the company will suffer losses and their business will decline further.

​3. Bounce Rate

Website speed will not only have an impact on credibility and conversion rates but will also greatly affect the bounce rate. Website visitors do not want to stay on your website long if your website has poor website speed.

This will increase the bounce rate of the website and visitors will just leave the website and not come back again.

​4. Long Term Impact

If the website that you manage has a slow speed and there has been no improvement at all, then it can have a long-term negative impact. So not only increasing the bounce rate and lowering the conversion rate, but it will appear not optimal in Google search results. So that over time loyal customers will stop using your services or products.

So optimizing website loading is very important and knowing the cause of a slow website is no less important so that the speed optimization process gets easier.

15 Reasons Why Your Website Is Slow and How to Fix It

Image: Dribble

There are many things that can make a website slow. Let’s discuss what causes a slow website in detail!

​1. WordPress Still Using Old Version

WordPress is a reliable CMS and many people use it to build their business websites. However, it is not uncommon for people to use old versions of WordPress and this will have a bad effect on the website later. This could be the reason the website is slow.

One of the bad consequences is reducing website speed because usually in the new WordPress version there will be improvements that can make the website faster.

​2. Incorrect Configuration

After the website has been created, of course, you will do some configurations according to the needs and development of the website. The goal is to improve the performance of the website itself to be much better.

However, you need to remember that errors during configuration can occur which can affect website performance and actually become slow to access. Not only that, errors in configuration can cause errors.

​3. Poor Server Performance

One of the causes of a slow website is poor server performance. The server is one of the important factors in supporting website speed. Because the server has a function to store all website data while serving all forms of requests from your website visitors.

If you use a server that has poor performance, it will cause the website to be slow. The factors can be anything and we often find one of the following two factors.

The first factor is the type of server used and the second factor is the location of the server which is too far away. Until now the Apache server type is one of the most popular servers. However, you need to know that the other type, namely LiteSpeed, has better performance.

LiteSpeed ​​gives pretty good results, which is 84% ​​faster than Apache during a speed test. That means the server used will greatly affect the speed of the website. That’s in terms of the type of server used, what about the distance of the server?

Well, you need to know that the farther the location of the server used is from your target visitor. Then the process will take longer and cause the website to be slow. We suggest that if the majority of your website visitors are from Indonesia, you should choose a server located in Indonesia.

​4. Website Not Using CDN

The next cause of a slow website is that the website does not use a CDN. CDN has many benefits and one of them is that it helps websites to be much faster. However, there are still websites that do not use a CDN. Is it possible that they don’t know what a CDN is yet?

Fine, if so. We’ll try to explain a little!

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network which is a global network of servers spread across various countries. If you use a CDN, every data request will be served by the server closest to the location of website visitors.

If you use an American server and don’t use a CDN, your website visitors in Indonesia will feel the slow loading of your website. Not only that, a lot of access to one server will affect the performance of the server.

5. ​Image Not Optimized

Images are sweeteners so that the content on the website becomes more interesting, images also play a role in providing illustrations so that the message to be conveyed is more assertive and the intent of the message conveyed in the content is illustrated.

Because of the importance of images to support quality content, many websites use images of the highest quality. However, sometimes it is not realized that the large image has not been optimized and this is one of the causes of the website is slower.

Because large image files will consume large bandwidth and will certainly burden the server. Image formats will also affect website speed, image formats such as GIF and PNG can make websites slow.

Therefore, we recommend that you compress each image that you want to upload to the website. The best tool to compress images, you can use TinyPNG.

6. ​Large Database

A database that is too large will affect website speed. For example, when you have many posts on a website with large files. In fact, it is not uncommon for websites to have a lot of data stored, even though the data is no longer used.

For example, deleted post data that is still neatly stored in the trash or some plugins that you deactivated but haven’t deleted. Therefore, pay attention to the use of the database so that it is not too large.

​7. There is a Render Block from JavaScript

Javascript is very useful for providing more interactive functions. In fact, if you add some Javascript code, it will make the website look more attractive. However, the workings of this Javascript can cause rendering blocks and this rendering block can be the cause of a slow website.

8. Less Optimal Caching

Caching is the process of storing HTML files, the goal is to make web pages faster. Now by using this method, bandwidth usage will be minimal and the process will be faster.

Caching here is server-side caching and the server used greatly affects the work of the server-side caching. However, many website owners don’t optimize properly or even install caching plugins properly. So the performance of the website decreases.

​9. Heavy Theme

The next cause of a slow website is the use of heavy themes, indeed a beautiful and sweet theme can really attract the attention of visitors. However, you need to understand that website speed is the most important thing.

Do not let you focus on a beautiful and attractive appearance, but forget about speed so that you use a heavy theme. One of the reasons why the theme is heavy is because it has many additional elements, so using a simple but attractive theme can increase website speed.

10. Most Ads

Indeed, advertising is one source of income for the website. However, too many ads are also not good and one of the causes of slow websites to access. Not only that, but too many ads will affect data requests to the server.

​11. Too Much Plugin Usage

Many website managers, do not realize that they have used too many plugins. The more plugins you use, means more resources are needed.

And this will worsen the performance of the website and automatically the speed of the website will be affected. Too much use of plugins is one of the causes of a slow website that is rarely realized by website owners.

13. Lots of Spam

Indeed, most spam is usually intended for email. However, now spam has attacked website comments. Spam will make your website visitors uncomfortable and of course, it will affect the credibility of your website.

The amount of spam will also affect website performance and website speed will decrease so SEO will also be affected as well.

14. ​Hosting Server Busy

There is someone who uses one server for several websites and this will make the server busy, so the website will inevitably be slow. For example, one of your websites is getting a lot of readers. This will affect other websites.

If you are indeed required to share a server, you need a hosting server that has a large capacity.

15. ​Weak Server Specifications

Choosing to use a server with the best quality is a smart choice because the origin of choosing a server will affect the speed of the website. If you choose a weak server specification, then your website will have slow performance.

Therefore, there are several specification criteria that we recommend, including paying attention to the RAM and Processor specifications used by the hosting provider. If you use a service with low RAM specifications, chances are that it will be the cause of a slow website.

16. ​Weak Internet Connection

Sometimes the cause of a slow website is not the server or the website that is the problem. But the internet connection that we use is experiencing interference or is indeed slow. Therefore, we advise you to check again whether your internet connection is stable or is experiencing problems.

The point is to make sure there are no internet connection problems while browsing the internet. The cause of a slow website on this one should not be underestimated because it is related to the problem of choosing internet network services.

​Easy Ways to Overcome a Slow Website

After you know some of the causes of a slow website, now how to fix it?

​1. Check Website Speed ​​First

Before you try some of the treatments, make sure to check the website speed first. How to check website speed using Pingdom, GTMetrix, and Web Page Analyzer can help you check website speed. The purpose of checking the speed first is to get a better picture of the website’s performance.

​2. Server Performance Check

After checking the website speed and it is proven that the website is slow, you can go to the next stage, which is to check server performance, if it is proven that the cause is the server. Then replace it by choosing a better server.

​3. Content Image Optimization

If indeed you haven’t done optimization, then we recommend immediately doing image optimization for all website content. You can use TinyPNG or IloveIMG to help make optimization faster and easier.

Closing

After understanding the cause of a slow website, now you know how to deal with a website that takes a long time to load or doesn’t it?

For those of you who are currently experiencing a slow website, now you don’t have to worry anymore. Because by applying how to overcome a slow website on a slow website it will be easily resolved.