What makes traditional pages load slowly?

There are lots of factors that play into slow page load. Page speed refers to the amount of time it takes to completely load a page, whether it be from direct, search, ads, social or referral traffic. Site speed affects everything from user bounce rate, conversions, revenue, user experience and overall SEO performance. If a user visits a site and is unhappy with their experience, they likely won’t come back. The typical rule is that if your site takes longer than two-three seconds to load, users will abandon the site. By three-four seconds, it is estimated that you will lose about half of your visitors. Amazing, right?

One of the most common reasons a page loads slowly is due to unoptimized images. Often times, developers and webmasters don’t check the size of their images before they are uploaded to a site. The goal is to keep the images as small as possible without sacrificing the visual appearance to the user (i.e. pixilated images). PNGs are typically very big in size. Unless they are necessary for certain elements of a website, like icons or logos, they should be avoided. JPEGs can also be very big in size. There are many applications on the web that can help to reduce image size.

Another common reason for slow page loads are the use of cheap web hosting. Host performance is due to how much the webmaster is willing to spend. Low budget webmasters often end up on overcrowded servers, which can slow down page speed tremendously.

Website templates can also have a big impact on page speed. Many available templates often come with heavy effects and design, such as animation, that can drastically slow down page speed. Heavy advertising is an additional cause for slow page speeds, not to mention they often hurt the user experience.