As a website developer in Brisbane, we speak to many small businesses about the performance of their websites. One of the most common concerns is around speed and general performance. The faster your website loads for visitors, the better their overall experience. And a better experience leads to more sales.
It’s pretty obvious that anyone would prefer to use a fast, responsive website, so why do some sites take so long to load? Here are a few key reasons (though there are dozens more):
- The website has not been optimised: Many people use online templates for their website that contain bloated or out of date coding that makes the website slow to load. The solution is to keep your website template updated or have your website custom designed by a professional website developer in Brisbane.
- You’re using “shared” web hosting: This is where your website shares resources with lots of other websites stored on the same hardware with your web hosting provider. If another website you’re sharing hosting with has a spike in traffic, for example, this can make your website slower as well. The solution is to use a higher grade web hosting package to speed up loading times, and forget about trying to save a few dollars on a cheap plan.
- Your hosting is overseas: If your customers are based in Australia, your website will load faster when your hosting provider is also based here. On the other hand, if your customers are overseas or worldwide, then you may need what’s called a Content Delivery Network (CDN), as this loads your website quickly from hosting servers around the world. Customers will then be able to open your website from their closest server, rather from Australia.
- Images are not optimised: Uploading large images to your website can slow it down. This is because every time someone opens your website in their browser, it takes too long to open all the images. The solution is to load the correct sized images to your website or to use your website software to automatically resize and compress all images.
- Third party websites: Code loaded into your website from third party websites can seriously slow the loading speed of your website. For example, if you’re displaying a Google Map or Facebook news feed on your website, the code that powers these components is loaded from those providers. If their code isn’t designed for blazing fast speeds, there’s not much even an experienced website developercan do to solve this problem — but we do have a few tricks up our sleeve.
If your website is loading too slowly, it is best to discuss the problem with a website developer. Our Brisbane web design agency is ready to help. Phone GO Creative on (07) 3333 2932 or get an instant quote online today.
