Website loading speeds
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I have completed the build of a site however when testing it the pages are incredibly slow to load and some take minutes.
Can someone help me fix this or highlight the reasons so I can solve this and have a smooth running site.
site is loaded athttp://www.s-e-lsoul.com
thanks everyone
Can someone help me fix this or highlight the reasons so I can solve this and have a smooth running site.
site is loaded athttp://www.s-e-lsoul.com
thanks everyone
I'm afraid the number one solution to this is switching to a better hosting company.
I noticed a couple of things.
1) The background images are pretty big. I have attached a version of your first background image saved as a jpg with 80% compression. It turns a 1.2 Megabyte image into a 91k image without a significant loss in quality (IMHO). I ran your main page through a page speed analyser at http://tools.pingdom.com/. The total size of the main page is 1.5 Meg and the images on that page are close to 1.4 Meg so by replacing this one background image, you reduce the size of that page from 1.5 Meg to 200k which is quite significant.
2) I also noticed the 50% of the page-rendering time is spent 'Waiting" which implies your server might be a bit overloaded. By comparison, the server I use reports waiting times of between 10-20%. This can become a problem with C5 installations because internally, they make a lot of calls to the database and if the server is busy, this can slow everything down. I noticed a HUGE difference in page loading speeds when I moved off GoDaddy to TMD Hosting so I know the server makes a considerable difference.
3) MP3s that load and play automatically are going to to cause a few issues. First, users who have a cap on their monthly usage will not appreciate it when these large files (4 Megabytes) are being downloaded automatically and using up their limited bandwidth. They have learned to avoid sites that do this. That's why you see play controls on most sites that serve music. I see you have a stop button but the page defaults to 'play' and I have to stop it.
4) This is just my opinion but I'm not keen on sites that automatically play music. You never know what the audio is set up like on the users computer. A few hours earlier, your user could have been jamming to their favourite tunes and forgot to turn their audio down. Now it's 1:00 in the morning and the kids are asleep. As soothing as this artist is, it's still possible to wake up the kids and the wife as the user fumbles to try to find the volume control. Also, I find it a bit repetitive to hear the first 5 seconds of the audio every time I land on the main page. Again, just my opinion.
5) A small design issue. Again, just my opinion but I think you need to find a way to contain the maximum width a bit. I have a 24 inch monitor and I have attached a screenshot of what the 'Gallery' page looks like on my monitor. I see you're using a responsive theme so I don't know how to do this with your theme. Others might chime in and help with this.
Just a few thoughts. Feel free to disregard.
1) The background images are pretty big. I have attached a version of your first background image saved as a jpg with 80% compression. It turns a 1.2 Megabyte image into a 91k image without a significant loss in quality (IMHO). I ran your main page through a page speed analyser at http://tools.pingdom.com/. The total size of the main page is 1.5 Meg and the images on that page are close to 1.4 Meg so by replacing this one background image, you reduce the size of that page from 1.5 Meg to 200k which is quite significant.
2) I also noticed the 50% of the page-rendering time is spent 'Waiting" which implies your server might be a bit overloaded. By comparison, the server I use reports waiting times of between 10-20%. This can become a problem with C5 installations because internally, they make a lot of calls to the database and if the server is busy, this can slow everything down. I noticed a HUGE difference in page loading speeds when I moved off GoDaddy to TMD Hosting so I know the server makes a considerable difference.
3) MP3s that load and play automatically are going to to cause a few issues. First, users who have a cap on their monthly usage will not appreciate it when these large files (4 Megabytes) are being downloaded automatically and using up their limited bandwidth. They have learned to avoid sites that do this. That's why you see play controls on most sites that serve music. I see you have a stop button but the page defaults to 'play' and I have to stop it.
4) This is just my opinion but I'm not keen on sites that automatically play music. You never know what the audio is set up like on the users computer. A few hours earlier, your user could have been jamming to their favourite tunes and forgot to turn their audio down. Now it's 1:00 in the morning and the kids are asleep. As soothing as this artist is, it's still possible to wake up the kids and the wife as the user fumbles to try to find the volume control. Also, I find it a bit repetitive to hear the first 5 seconds of the audio every time I land on the main page. Again, just my opinion.
5) A small design issue. Again, just my opinion but I think you need to find a way to contain the maximum width a bit. I have a 24 inch monitor and I have attached a screenshot of what the 'Gallery' page looks like on my monitor. I see you're using a responsive theme so I don't know how to do this with your theme. Others might chime in and help with this.
Just a few thoughts. Feel free to disregard.
Just on the image size... I use this free software:
http://imageoptim.com
The savings can be more than 50%, especially on PNG's, and quality is next to no different.
http://imageoptim.com
The savings can be more than 50%, especially on PNG's, and quality is next to no different.
A couple of things to look at.
1. Have you turned on the caching in the Dashboard?
2. Have you switched on Firebug or similar in your browser to see what's taking the time? (You have to empty the local cache before you do this)
Gareth