You want a fast website – you need a fast website if you want web traffic. Chances are if your website doesn’t load in the first second, you lose that web visitor. The AOL dial-up connection is no more, but perhaps it makes an interesting cell phone ringtone. So, how to make your website load fast? Or what is making your website load soo slow? Here are some good tips!
1) Start With Clean, Efficient Website Code
Your website’s speed starts with its foundation. If the code behind your site is messy or bloated, even the best images or hosting won’t fix it.
Here’s what to do:
- Look at websites built with the platform you’re using or thinking of using. Do they load quickly?
- Check out their Showcase examples. If even their best sites are slow, that’s a bad sign.
- See if the company uses their own website builder for their site – that’s a good sign of confidence. (We do at UltimateWB.)
2) Be Smart About the Content You Add
Even a well-coded website can slow down if you’re adding heavy or poorly optimized content. Some things to look out for:
A) Images
Large image files can seriously slow down a page. Try to keep images under 1MB. If you have a lot of images on one page – especially big ones – that load time can add up quickly. To help with this, make sure to optimize your images. We make this easy with UltimateWB’s built-in WebP converter, which drastically reduces image file size without reducing image quality.
Also: don’t copy/paste images from programs like Word or PowerPoint into your builder. That can bring in a ton of unnecessary code. Always upload your images properly through your website builder.
B) Embedded Plugins
Adding third-party plugins – like widgets, calendars, or video embeds – can be useful, but they might load slower than the rest of your site. If they lag, your page does too.
C) Page Size
If you’ve packed a ton of content onto one page, that can cause issues too. Test how long it takes to load, and if it’s slow, break it up into multiple pages or simplify the content.
3) Keep Spam in Check
Spam bots don’t just post junk – they can also put a strain on your server. If your site is getting hit by a flood of automated requests or fake traffic, it can slow down load times for your real users.
What to do:
- Keep an eye on your server performance. If things slow down randomly, there could be spam activity.
- Ask your web host to investigate. They can identify suspicious IPs or traffic spikes and help you block problem users.
- Don’t ignore the issue – even a single spam bot refreshing a page thousands of times can mess things up.
4) Choose a Good Hosting Provider
Not all web hosting is equal. Some servers may offer unlimited space, but they cut corners on performance, which affects your load speed.
Here’s what to consider:
- Do they have a good reputation for reliability?
- Is your site hosted with shared resources that slow things down during peak times?
- Do they offer scalable options if your traffic grows?
At UltimateWB, both our Web Hosting and Cloud plans use very fast servers equipped with the latest technology to deliver top-notch performance. This means your website loads quickly and reliably, even as your traffic grows.
Good hosting makes a noticeable difference in speed.
5) Make Sure Your Server Can Handle Your Content & Traffic
As your website grows, so do your hosting needs. It’s not just about having enough disk space – your server also needs to handle the data transfer between your site and your visitors (aka bandwidth).
If you’re seeing slower performance:
- Check your traffic and file sizes using your hosting control panel (like cPanel).
- See if you’re getting close to your limits.
- Upgrade your plan if needed.
Here’s a rough way to estimate how much bandwidth you need:
Daily Visitors × Page Views per Visitor × Average Page Size × 30 days
If your site’s getting more popular and you need to upgrade – that’s a good thing. It means people are coming. Keep the momentum going by making sure your site stays fast.
Wrap-Up:
Website speed isn’t just a nice-to-have. It directly affects your traffic, user experience, and SEO. If your site’s slow, look at the coding, content, hosting, and traffic to pinpoint the issue. Often, it’s a combination – but the fixes are usually doable.
Need help speeding things up? Reach out or check out what UltimateWB offers – we’re all about clean code and fast-loading websites.
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Ready to design & build your own website? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.
Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.