Maintenance · · 2 min read
Page speed: why a slow website costs you customers
Every second of waiting is a chance for someone to leave. These are the most common causes of slowness and how I fix them.
When a page takes a long time to load, people don't think "what a slow server"; they think the business isn't professional, or they simply leave. Google also takes loading experience into account when deciding which results to show.
The most common causes
Images that are too big
It's the first thing I check. Photos uploaded straight from a camera or phone, several megabytes each, shown in a small box. Resizing them and using modern formats usually cuts their weight drastically with no visible difference.
Too many plugins or scripts
Every add-on, chat, counter or widget adds code the browser has to download and run. Many sites load tools nobody uses anymore.
Inadequate hosting
An overloaded or poorly configured server makes everything slow, however well optimised the page is.
Fonts and external resources
Loading several typefaces or resources from other servers adds waiting time. It's worth limiting them and loading them efficiently.
How I measure it
I use tools such as Google's PageSpeed Insights, which analyse the page and point out what's slowing it down, on both mobile and desktop. I mainly look at how long the main content takes to appear and whether the page responds quickly when tapped.
What I usually do
- Optimise and resize images, and defer the ones that aren't visible at first.
- Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts.
- Enable caching and compression on the server.
- Review the hosting if that's where the problem is.
An ongoing job
Speed degrades over time: every new photo and every add-on adds up. That's why it's part of my maintenance tasks and not something done just once.