10 Things That Make Websites Slow, and How to Spot Them
You know that moment when someone asks about your website, and you feel this little knot in your stomach? Not because you don’t like what it says, but because you know it takes forever to load. You’ve watched people’s eyes glaze over while waiting. You’ve felt the embarrassment of saying, “Sorry, it’s running a little slow today,” like it’s your fault. It is slow. And you’ve started to wonder if it’s costing you clients.
Here’s the truth I’ve learned in 15 years of building websites: a slow website feels like a broken promise. You’re offering something valuable, but the technology is making people wait for it. That’s not a character flaw. That’s an opportunity to give your visitors the experience you actually want them to have.
The good news? Most of the things that make websites slow are fixable. And you don’t need to understand all the technical jargon to spot them. I’m going to walk you through what actually slows things down, how you can recognize it, and what to do about it. Because a faster website is one step closer to feeling like the real you.
1. Images That Are Too Big (File Size, Not Dimensions)
This is the #1 culprit I see. You upload a beautiful photo from your camera or phone, and it weighs 5 megabytes. Your website tries to load a 5MB image on every page, and visitors are waiting.
Here’s what’s happening: your camera takes gorgeous, high-resolution images because they need to look perfect in print. On the web, they need to be compressed. A good web image is typically 100-300 kilobytes, not megabytes.
How to spot it: Visit your website on your phone (especially on a slower connection). Does the page feel sluggish before images appear? Try using Google PageSpeed Insights (it’s free). It’ll tell you which images are too large.
What to do: Ask your web designer or host if they compress images automatically. If they don’t, you can use free tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to compress images before uploading. It’s not hard. And the difference is noticeable.
2. Too Many Plugins (or Plugins That Don’t Play Well Together)
If your website is built on WordPress or a similar platform, plugins are those little add-ons that do extra things, like contact forms, analytics, security checks, or backup systems. Each one is helpful on its own. Together, they can bog your site down.
Many women I work with have 20+ plugins installed, and half of them aren’t even being used. It’s like leaving every window open in your house during winter, then wondering why your heating bill is so high.
How to spot it: If your website feels slower than it used to, ask your web host or designer for a list of active plugins. Do you recognize them? Do you actually use them?
What to do: Go through the list. Deactivate and delete anything you don’t need. Keep security plugins, backup plugins, and your essential functionality. Most websites work great with 8-12 well-chosen plugins. Not 25.
3. Unoptimized Hosting
Your hosting is where your website actually lives. Think of it like the property your house sits on. Not all properties are created equal.
Some hosting is cheap because it’s shared with hundreds of other websites. When someone’s website next door gets slammed with traffic, it pulls resources and your site slows down too. It’s not your fault, and you can’t fix it yourself, but you can move.
How to spot it: Load your website at different times of day. Does it get slower during business hours? Check your hosting provider’s name in your domain settings. If it’s a very cheap provider (under $5 a month), that might be part of the problem.
What to do: This is where a conversation with your web designer or host makes sense. You might not need to upgrade, but it’s worth asking if your current hosting is right for your type of business.
4. Videos Embedded (Not Hosted Elsewhere)
If you have videos on your website, where are they actually stored? This matters.
If your video is embedded directly on your site (meaning it’s uploading from your hosting), it slows everything down. Videos are huge files. They take up space. They require bandwidth. If your host isn’t built for video, it’s like trying to stream a movie through a dial-up connection.
How to spot it: Look at your pages with videos. Do they take longer to load? Use a speed testing tool and compare a page with video to a page without.
What to do: Host your videos on YouTube or Vimeo instead, then embed the player on your site. It’s a tiny change that makes a massive difference. Your video still plays on your website, but the heavy lifting happens somewhere else.
5. Outdated WordPress (or Whatever Platform You’re Using)
I know updates feel annoying. You see that notification and think, “Not today, tech.” But updates do two things: they add new features, and they fix things that are slowing your site down.
If your WordPress version is three years old, you’re running on outdated code. It’s less efficient. It’s also more vulnerable to problems that slow you down even more.
How to spot it: Log into your website’s backend. Look for a notification about available updates. If there are updates waiting, your site is running on old software.
What to do: Have your web designer or host update your site. Do it during a time when you’re not expecting visitors. Most updates take 10 minutes. It’s not something to fear.
6. A Database That’s Never Been Cleaned Out
Your website has a database, even if you’ve never heard of it. This is where all your information lives, like blog posts, contact forms, user comments, and settings.
Over time, this database collects junk. Spam comments you never published. Failed login attempts. Old versions of posts. Temporary files. It all adds up, and your website has to search through it every single time someone visits.
How to spot it: This one’s harder to see yourself because it happens in the background. But if your website feels slower over time, despite no other changes, the database might be getting bloated.
What to do: Ask your host or web designer about database optimization. This should happen annually. It’s maintenance, like getting your car serviced. Not exciting, but important.
7. Missing Caching (or Caching That Isn’t Set Up Right)
Caching is a way of telling your website, “Remember this part. Next time someone asks for it, just show them the saved version instead of rebuilding it from scratch.”
Think of it like this: every time someone visits your site, your server is basically recreating the entire page from scratch. That takes time. Caching says, “Build it once, use it many times.”
How to spot it: Use a speed testing tool like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. They’ll tell you if caching isn’t configured properly.
What to do: Caching should be set up by your host or designer when you first build your site. If it’s not mentioned, that’s a conversation to have. It’s not complicated, and it makes a real difference.
8. Third-Party Scripts and Tracking Code
You want to know where your visitors come from, right? So you add Google Analytics. You add Meta Pixel. You add a chatbot. You add a scheduling tool. You add a popup for your email list.
Each one of these is a tiny piece of code running on every page. Each one adds weight. Each one slows your site down a little bit.
How to spot it: Open your website in your browser. Right-click and choose “View Page Source.” Look for things that start with script, tracking, or analytics. If you see dozens of lines of code you didn’t write, you have a lot of third-party stuff running.
What to do: Go through your analytics and tools. Do you actually use them? Are you looking at the data? If not, remove them. Keep what matters. Use one analytics tool (Google is free and good). Use one email tool. Use one chatbot. Not one of each.
9. No Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A CDN (content delivery network) is a system that makes your website faster for people all over the world.
Here’s how it works: your website is hosted on a server in one location, let’s say Texas. If someone in Tokyo visits your site, the information has to travel across the ocean to reach them. That takes time. A CDN copies your site to servers in many places around the world, so the person in Tokyo loads it from a server much closer to them.
How to spot it: If you notice your website loads faster for some visitors than others, location might be a factor.
What to do: Many modern hosting providers include a basic CDN. Ask your host if yours does. Cloudflare offers a free CDN option too. If you’re getting traffic from all over the world, this is worth setting up.
10. Old Code and Technical Debt
This one’s the sneaky culprit. Your website was built five years ago on code that was fine then but isn’t ideal now. Every time something got added or changed, the code got a little messier. Nobody rewrote it, so now you’re running on outdated, inefficient code.
It’s like living in a house where every time you needed something new, you just added it without updating the electrical system. It still works, but it’s straining.
How to spot it: You can’t really see this one yourself. But if your designer or developer says things like “That’s on my list to refactor” or “We need to clean up the code eventually,” that’s technical debt talking.
What to do: Have a real conversation with your designer about what parts of your site might benefit from being rebuilt or optimized. Sometimes it’s worth doing. Sometimes it’s fine as is. But it’s good to know.
Why Speed Actually Matters (Beyond Just Being Annoyed)
I want to be direct with you: a slow website doesn’t just feel bad. It affects how people experience your work.
Visitors lose patience. They leave. They tell someone else it didn’t work. Search engines rank slower sites lower. And honestly, you feel it every time you share a link. You’re embarrassed before they even click.
But here’s the thing: this is fixable. These aren’t big, scary technical problems that require a complete overhaul. They’re opportunities to make your website run the way it actually should.
And when your website is fast? You don’t have that knot in your stomach. You don’t have to apologize. You can just let your work speak for itself, which is what should be happening all along.
Frequently Asked Questions
How fast should my website actually be?
Most pages should load in under 3 seconds on a decent internet connection. If you’re waiting longer than that, something’s worth fixing. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to see how you’re doing. It’s free and gives you a good starting point.
Do I need to hire someone to fix all of this?
Not necessarily. Some things (like compressing images or removing unused plugins) you can do yourself. Other things (like database optimization or setting up a CDN) are better left to your web designer or host. It depends on what’s causing the slowness and how comfortable you are with your website’s backend.
What’s the most important thing to tackle first?
Usually images. That’s the most common culprit, and it’s also the easiest to fix. Start there, test your site’s speed, and see what else needs attention. Then work through the list in order of impact.
Will fixing my website’s speed cost a lot of money?
Not usually. Many of these fixes are free or very inexpensive. Upgrading hosting might cost a little more, but you’re probably spending that anyway. The biggest cost is the time it takes to identify and fix the issues, and that’s exactly what I help with.
If your website no longer feels like you, let’s talk about it – Book a Free Website Clarity Call with Beth →