How to Turbocharge Your Website Loading Time: Tips & Tricks

In the digital age, patience is a scarce commodity, especially when it comes to website loading time. A slow website can be a conversion killer with a direct impact on bounce rates and user satisfaction. If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, it’s time for a speed upgrade. This post will take you through actionable steps to enhance your website’s performance and load time. 

Estimated reading time: 57 minutes

Images

99% of the time the cause of a slow page loading time is usually down to images being too big. Images with big dimensions (height and width) obviously lead to big file sizes. So you need to resize them so that they’re as close as possible to the actual size that’s going to be displayed on screen.

You don’t have to get it down to the nearest pixel, you just the same ballpark. For example, if you have an image set as the background for a section on screen you’re probably going to need it to be around about 2000px wide vs rather than the 4000px wide that the original image was.

See where I’m going with this?

So before you upload those shiny new brand images to your website you need to resize them.  Canva is really useful for this, especially if you have a blog on your site. 

For the featured images in my blog posts I have a template set up in Canva so that I can drag the image I want to use onto the template and quickly download it ready to go.

Read my in-depth guide on WordPress image optimisation

Plugins

Plugins are one of the huge bonuses of using WordPress. There’s literally a plugin for anything you want your WordPress website to do – online courses, membership sites, online shops.

But this can lead to shiny object syndrome where you install ALL the plugins which can lead to a slow loading site.

Not all plugins are created equal. Some are much more efficient than others and if you have several all running when the site is loaded you can imagine the lag that it can create.

Keep plugins to a minimum, be brutal in culling them from your site. If it’s not essential, get rid.

Caching

It sounds really scary but in a nutshell, caching is where a website allows a browser (Chrome, FireFox, Safari etc.) to download copies of the files it needs to work so that they can be used the next time that browser loads that website.

After the website has been loaded the first time the browser doesn’t have to re-download all those files. Because it already has a copy of them. Which obviously reduces the website loading time the next time that person visits your site.

Some hosts (see below) have their own caching solutions that are designed to work with their equipment. So always check with them if you’re not sure. Or you can install a plugin like WP-Optimise or Swift Performance Lite to enable caching on your site.

Hosting

This is where the files for your website are stored and made available to anyone who types in your website URL in a browser. Hosting companies will have warehouses full of special computers (servers) dedicated to holding the files needed to display the different websites that they host.

One thing to remember with hosting is that not all hosts are created equal. Not only that but a lot of hosting companies have quite lucrative affiliate schemes so it can be hard to work out whether a host is that good or whether the recommendation is purely to get the referral commission.

The better the quality of the equipment used to host your website the quicker your page loading time will be.

Which means that GoDaddy hosting you got at a steal is not going to cut it if you want a fast website loading time. 

My hosting recommendation

My recommendation for hosting is Lyrical Host, a company aimed at women who are based in Nottingham.

Not only do they have great equipment but their user support is pretty epic too. I recommend them to all my clients and my own websites are hosted with them too.

Use the code KIMSCOTLAND10 to get a 10% discount on your first month’s payment.

I’m going to level with you, this is an affiliate code which means I get a small commission if you use the code. I only recommend products/services I use and love. If you don’t feel comfortable using the code, please Google Lyrical Host and sign up that way. Don’t miss out on a great company because you think I’m biased because I’m getting a commission.

Need help with your website?

Whether you’re looking for a new website or need help with your existing one, I can help. Book a discovery call today to see how I can best help you and your business.

4 easy ways to improve your website loading time: summary

Skipped to the bottom to get the lowdown? Here it is:

Images – resize and compress them before uploading to your website

Plugins – be really picky with the plugins you install on your WordPress website. Install only essential plugins (or remove excess plugins) and watch your page loading time improve.

Caching – install a caching plugin, or check with your hosting provider about caching options, so that browsers download elements of your website to save visitors time on their next visits to your site.

Hosting – invest in good quality hosting like Lyrical Host or SiteGround. You’ll reap the rewards with the loading time for your website

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