Speed Up Your Website Load Times

I was reading an interesting article in Website Magazine on changing web hosting companies. While there are many reasons why you may not like your current web host and want to switch, according to the article the overwhelming reason why people move from one hosting company to another is slow website loading times. Nobody likes to have to constantly wait for their site pages to load, and I can attest that switching your web hosting company can solve your speed issues.

A couple of times in the past I had initially signed up with a web host and received good service and performance. Then, because they weren’t able to keep up with their growing customer base and other issues with their data center or network, my site loading times slowed to a crawl. Everyone probably experiences a slight delay once in a while, but having to wait every time you access your site is definitely unacceptable. The last time this happened to me, I was using HostGator for some of my sites. Because of the speed issues, I moved those sites to iPage. I immediately noticed a big improvement in page loading times.

Although transferring your website to another host can improve your website speed, there may be other measures you can take to get your web pages to load faster. If you are in the process of looking for web hosting for your site, keep in mind that data center location can make a difference in website speed. For example, InMotion Hosting utilizes their Max Speed Zone Technology with their business hosting plans. You can choose which data center at InMotion will host your site–which can reduce your site loading times. And, if you’re within the designated max speed zone area near the data center, your site performance can improve even more.

If you already have a web hosting company and are experiencing load time problems, you can consider using a content delivery network. With a CDN, parts of your website can be stored on multiple servers in different locations around the globe. Then, when your users access your site, the content is downloaded from the server closest to them—which results in reduced load times. Even for those looking for their first web hosting plan, a CDN can be a wise consideration if your site will have a lot of images and other multimedia content.

Also, for those with existing websites that are slow loading, there may be solutions based on your site platform. For example, if you have a WordPress site, there are a number of cache plugins that can help reduce load times. There are also plugins that can optimize and reduce the size of your images to speed things up.

And yes, you can change web hosting companies if nothing else works for you. Since everyone’s situation may be different, be sure to do some online research beforehand to find a host that will best fit your site’s needs.