8 Ways to Fix Slow Website Speed

What can be more frustrating than a slow website? It is super bad for users and for website owners. Time is money. The fast-paced life of today demands websites that load faster and smoother. Luckily, there are a number of ways you can speed up your website to make it a success. Here’s

what you can do achieve this goal:

1. Upgrade Web Hosting Plan
   A cheap web hosting plan or shared hosting that you chose during the process of website design may prove detrimental for the site speed in the long run. So you need to upgrade your web hosting plan. It will improve the speed of your site. For shared hosting, you can ask your website developer shift to a VPS/dedicated option. You will notice a substantial difference in your website speed.

2. Allow Browser Caching
   When you allow caching, you improve your website speed dramatically and give users a rewarding experience while browsing the site. Caching is the process of storing static files (images, HTML documents, CSS, media files, JavaScript files) to ensure easier and faster access.

3. Adblocking
   Sometimes, advertisements are the culprit for slowing down a website. The best thing to do is to block ads on the website. This process will speed it up. Some of the best tools to use in this respect are unlocked Origin or Adblock Plus. You can use it for blocking ads automatically or only on some handpicked websites. If you are an Opera user, you may try the Opera AdBlock add-on to block ads.

4. Allow Gzip Compression
   Compressing files on PC as ZIP files can reduce the size of files dramatically. Gzip compression is a similar process that works on website pages. It can reduce HTTP requests and response time by around 70 percent!

5. Minimize Use of Web Fonts
   These days, web fonts have become quite popular in the field of website design. Although the fonts add to the attractiveness of the site, these may also have a negative impact on the speed of page rendering. Web fonts tend to add extra HTTP requests to external resources. You can adhere to the following measures to reduce the overall size of web font traffic:
   – Make use of modern formats WOFF2 mainly for modern browsers
   – Use only those specific character sets used on the site
   – Do not use a large number of font styles. Choose only the ones needed for the site.

6. Eliminate Unnecessary Plugins
   Each plugin you add to your website demands some resources to be able to run. The number of resources results in a slower website. In case, you have certain plugins installed that are no longer in use, simply deactivate and delete them. Too many plugins can slow down your website and cause crashes and security issues.

7. Detect 404 Errors
   A 404 error is a situation where a “Page isn’t found” message appears when someone tries to reach a site. This message is actually supplied by the hosting to browsers or search engines if the accessed content of a page does not exist. You can use various error detection tools or plugins to detect and correct a 404 error. Additional plugins may have a negative impact on the speed of the website. Hence running the resource through tools to detect error is important. Choose the tool that perfectly fit into your website and browser requirements. For instance, you can use the 404 Redirected Plugin For WordPress.

8. Fix Broken Links
   Broken links in JavaScript, CSS, and image URLs can affect user experience. These affect negatively on website speed. You should scan your links regularly and fix broken ones as soon as possible.