If you’ve ever used a slow-loading website, you intuitively know how frustrating dealing with a slow website can be. It’s annoying, and your visitors will be annoyed if they have to wait around for your content to load (especially on mobile devices).

So at a basic level, one big problem with a slow WordPress website is that it creates a really poor user experience for your visitors, which is something you should always aim to avoid.

However, there are also lots of specific downsides to having a slow website:

SEO rankings – Google uses site speed as a ranking factor in both its desktop and mobile results. It will also start using Core Web Vitals metrics soon, which include a speed metric. Site speed can be especially important in competitive niches with lots of strong sites, where it’s a differentiator between two equally-strong sites. Here’s Google’s take.

Conversion rates – slower load times lead to lower conversion rates. Even just a 100-millisecond delay can hurt conversion rates by 7%, according to Akamai. Deloitte also found that just a 100-millisecond improvement in site speed led to shoppers spending 10% more.

how to increase your website loading speed

1. Optimize your images

One of the biggest factors impacting the loading speed of your website is your images. Including high-quality images can really improve the presentation of your site, but if you have too many of them, especially really large ones, you’ll drastically slow down your loading speed.

If you don’t want to reduce the number of images on your site, look into compressing and optimising them instead. This is much easier to do than many people realise, with plug-ins available that will reduce the size of your images without impacting their quality. There are also websites that you can use for this, which can reduce the file size of your images by up to 80%.

2. Use a CDN To Have Better Loading Speed

CDNs, or content distribution networks, are large networks of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. The way this works is that duplicate versions of your site are saved across different locations at data centres.

Thanks to CDNs, requests for data don’t have to be sent all the way to the host server and back, often through multiple networks across thousands of miles. This means that users can expect faster and much more reliable access to your website.

3. Minimize HTTP requests

Reducing the number of HTTP requests can be very important for increasing the loading speed of your website. Each asset on your page requires a separate HTTP request to be made, which can take a long time to process. Every image, script or CSS file is linked to a separate request. For this reason, it’s best to keep the number of assets on each page to an absolute minimum.

Another way to understand the root of this problem is to run a speed test. Which can help to identify which of your assets are the most troublesome in delaying the loading time of your website. Once you’re aware of what elements are causing an issue, you can find better ways to combat them.

4. Avoid redirects

A redirect is when a user clicks on one page but is sent to another. This can add a couple of extra seconds to the time it takes for them to access your content. Which can be crucial when trying to retain customers and improve user experience.

There are times when it’s impossible to avoid using redirects, such as if you’re moving to a new site. But you should avoid using them altogether unless they are absolutely necessary.