There was a time when a website would take ten or even twenty seconds to load. People were use to static pages appearing slowly in sections and even after being loaded fully, there would be a few incompatible design elements that wouldn’t work. Those days are passé. Today, if your website doesn’t load in less than three seconds, you are going to lose the traffic. This would eventually impair your lead generation campaigns, sales and basically your entire modus operandi.
The longest most people are going to wait for your website to load is four seconds. After that, they would simply close the tab or the browser. They may head off to another site or just restart their search. There are many elements that affect website speed and you must check them all so you can be completely sure of the loading time.
1) A Pivotal Factor is the Weight or Size of Your Website.
The time taken for the data exchange between the computer of the user and your server that hosts the website will depend on how much data needs to be downloaded onto the user’s computer. A website that takes 1MB to load will take less time than one needing 10MB. There are websites that require less than 1MB to load. You would do well if you don’t opt for a very heavy homepage or the initial download of the basic features of your website. The larger your website, the more delayed the loading shall be. You should use PageSpeed Insights of Google, Drupal: Speedy and other tools including plug-ins to test the speed of your website.
2) The Bandwidth You Have Will Also Determine the Website Speed.
How much traffic can you handle at a given point in time? If you can handle a thousand hits then your website would slow down if there are more than two thousand unique visitors at the time. Many webhosts claim that they offer unlimited bandwidth but that doesn’t happen. If your server is unable to withstand or manage the traffic, then your website would slow down.
3) The Features on Your Website Will Play a Crucial Role.
Get rid of unnecessary features, which could be content or design elements, plug-ins or widgets, anything that is clearly slowing down your website. You would realize over time that not every feature, widget or plug-in is as useful as you thought they would be.
Although millions of people visit Brandon's blog each month, his path to success was not easy. Go here to read his incredible story, "From Disabled and $500k in Debt to a Pro Blogger with 5 Million Monthly Visitors." If you want to send Brandon a quick message, then visit his contact page here.