By Remember the days when everyone had a dial-up connection and had plenty of time to make a snack while waiting on a website's homepage to load?
It's okay, I shudder every time I think about it too.
In 2017, nobody likes sitting around waiting for a website to load. So if your business website suffers from slow loading times, you might be giving your visitors some terrifying flashbacks. Here are 4 reasons why your website might take too long to load and what can be done to bring you back up to speed:
1. Your Images Aren't Optimized
Probably the clearest explanation for a slow website is having far too many unoptimized images. These are full-sized images that load in sluggish chunks and consume loads of bandwidth while doing so.
That's why it's important you make sure your images are resized appropriately for your website -- especially when it comes to responsiveness. As a website owner, you want all your images to appear perfectly on any device that accesses your site.
2. Way Too Much Flash
As Internet technology speeds into the future, some older developments get left in the dust. One of these is most definitely Flash, an older software tool used to handle complex interactive elements in web design.
In the past, web designers loved Flash for the huge number of options it provided to make a website seem more creative and interesting. But lately, Flash has fallen by the wayside in favor of more efficient software tools that won't slow your web page loading time down to a crawl.
3. Clunky Code
If the coding on your website is handled by an amateur DIYer or an inexperienced freelancer, they may include a lot of unnecessary elements in the code. These include excessive white spaces, empty lines, and extraneous comments. Simply put: if your code is inelegant, so is your website.
Your best option is to have a professional overhaul your code to remove anything unnecessary and to properly compress the code. This will speed up your page loading times dramatically and lead to a smoother user experience.
4. Poor Hosting
Sometimes, the reason your site is so slow is simply because of subpar support from its server. And if the journey your website's data has to travel to reach your visitors' devices is too great, it may take way too long to load.
That's why it might be in your best interest to find a local hosting company that promises you speed, support, and excellent uptime. For more information on the advantages of a local hosting company, check out this recent blog post!
Conclusion
If you can identify one or more of these reasons as the explanation for why your website is so slow, you might think it's not that big a deal. Why worry now if it's worked for all these years -- at least you have a website for your business, right?
Unfortunately, this is a dangerous way of thinking for a business to stay successful. For one, Google's search engine algorithms like to punish slower websites by keeping them off the first pages of search results. That means your potential customers might never even find you.
Second, according to a Kissmetrics study, 47 percent of consumers expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. That means a huge number of your visitors will simply close out of your site and move to one of your competitors' sites if yours loads too slowly.
Don't disappoint your customers with a slow website. Instead, exceed their expectations by giving your business the website you know it deserves. Contact GroupM7 today to learn more about how you can speed up your business website!
Aaron Dunn
Aaron is a writer by trade with several years of professional experience under his belt. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. Before joining the Group, he worked as a freelancer and tech reviewer in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Aaron currently lives in Pittsburg, TX. 
