There’s
an adage that says, “slow and steady wins the race,” but when it comes to your
website, that’s a sure-fire way to fail. And in this case, failure doesn’t just
mean losing a race; it means losing business. So, let’s identify four common
causes of a slow website and eliminate them FTW.
A recent
study conducted by Brand Perfect revealed that 67 percent of those
surveyed cited a slow-running website as their primary reason for abandoning an
online purchase.
Because
of this, it’s imperative that you optimize your site for
performance at all times. So what causes your site to slow down? More
important, what can you do to speed it up? In this post we’ll identify four
common culprits and explain how you can speed things up.There’s an adage that
says, “slow and steady wins the race,” but when it comes to your website,
that’s a sure-fire way to fail. And in this case, failure doesn’t just mean
losing a race; it means losing business. So, let’s identify four common causes
of a slow website and eliminate them FTW.
A recent
study conducted by Brand Perfect revealed that 67 percent of those
surveyed cited a slow-running website as their primary reason for abandoning an
online purchase.
Because
of this, it’s imperative that you optimize your site for
performance at all times. So what causes your site to slow down? More
important, what can you do to speed it up? In this post we’ll identify four
common culprits and explain how you can speed things up.
Four Common Causes of a Slow Website
1. Unoptimized Images
One of
the most common culprits for slow sites is a large volume of unoptimized
images. Full-sized images can consume a lot of bandwidth while loading. So,
take time to resize your images. Take a look at the image tag – it allows
you to set the height and width. Be sure to scale the photos
proportionally so that they don’t get stretched or skewed. Then, consider
changing image format, which can significantly reduce the file size. Finally,
reduce image quality. No, that doesn’t mean making your photos look bad. It
just means tweaking some simple settings. For JPG images, this is done
bydirectly reducing the quality. In most cases, a quality setting of 80 to 90
percent will show no significant changes from the original version. And you can
go even lower depending on the type of image, the detail, and the colors. For
other image formats such as GIF and PNG, you can reduce quality
by opting for a smaller color palette.
2. Too Much Fancy Flash
Fancy
isn’t always fun. In fact, Flash can seriously slow down your website. Flash is
the sumo wrestler of software – it’s big and bulky. And here’s one more vote
against it: Flash is almost always incompatible with mobile devices, meaning
that a large chunk of your audience won’t even be able to access it. So, if
you’re using Flash, you’re slowing down your site for minimal benefit.
3. Bulky Code
Inefficient
or bulky code can create major roadblocks for your site. Many CSS coders may
include white space in order to make pages more readable. The problem is, much
of this white space can be eliminated while still maintaining readability. Give
some thought to removing line breaks and excess spacing as this can do wonders
for condensing your code, shrinking file sizes, and maximizing speed.
4. External Embedded Media
Another
common culprit for a slow-running website is external media usage. That means
cutting down on the videos and shiny stuff – they’re like carbs. Use them
in moderation. Although you may find a fun video or smart slideshow that you
think is relevant to your business, think twice before embedding someone else’s
media into your site. Once you embed external material into your site, your
pages will only run as fast as the host site. In other words, if that external
site is having a particularly slow day, your site may run slowly too. Don’t let
another site drag yours down! Whenever possible, it’s smart to host all
content on your own server.
Is your
page currently running at peak efficiency?
Use this
speedy website checklist to make immediate improvements:
·
Resize your images
·
Change image format
·
Reduce image quality
·
Eliminate or minimize fancy
flash
·
Remove bulky code including
line breaks and excess spacing
·
Minimize media from other
sources
·
Store media on your own
servers
Photo
by Flickr User Herr Olsen
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