I hate it when my website takes forever to load and my term of “slow” is 2 seconds or more. When that happens, I often ask myself why is my web hosting slow. What were the things I did right and I did wrong that lead to a slow loading WordPress site?
You see, there are many reasons that could lead to a slow web hosting and slow website loading speed.
Here are the top reasons (as well as how to fix them).
Your Web Hosting Is Generally Bad
A bad web host—that’s what I call it. If you are using a cheap web hosting solution, this could be a real problem for you. You see, you may have the best WordPress plugin installed and setup, you may have the lightweight WordPress theme and a well-optimized WordPress database.
But if your web hosting is generally slow, you are going to get a slow loading website. Period.
The solution to a bad web host?
Get a better web hosting solution such as SiteGround or Kinsta (if you can afford managed WordPress hosting solution). A good web hosting company is going to give you better optimized servers that will make your WordPress site loads faster. Plus, other perks such as nightly backups and live chat support.
Lightweight WordPress Theme Matters
Generally, the larger the page is, the longer it will take to load. In this case, using the right WordPress theme is important to improve your loading speed. If you are using a heavy WordPress theme builder, it is not the fault of your web hosting company that your site loads slowly. Instead, it is actually your own!
Here are some of the best lightweight WordPress themes:
- Thrive Themes Builder with ShapeShift
- Elementor Builder
- Oxygen Builder
This website is using Oxygen Builder with Thrive Architect for a customized solution—lightweight WordPress theme with powerful content builder plugin under one roof.
Overselling Server Allocation
Web hosting is a complicated business and ROI is all that matters. In order to generate more income and achieve breakeven point faster, most shared web hosting companies will oversell their server allocation.
Here’s an example.
- Server “A” can host up to 1,000 websites at one go.
- The real occupants in server “A” is 100,000 at any given time.
Instead of having the resources equally distributed between 1,000 websites, now you are looking at a distribution ratio of 1:100,000, that’s a 100% oversell ratio.
Sure, not every website generates more than 10,000 visits in a month, but you only need one who has a super high traffic and you are pretty ‘toast’.
“Ask your web hosting company about overselling. It is best to avoid web hosting companies that oversell their servers.”
Reginald Chan
Unoptimized Servers
Are you using a normal web hosting service or a dedicated to WordPress? In most normal web hosting companies provide servers that are not geared towards WordPress but to a wide range of applications such as Magento, PrestaShop and OpenCart.
Each of these application performs differently and you will end up with servers that are not optimized for WordPress.
In easier terms, unoptimized servers = means slower web hosting performance.
Shared Web Hosting Solution
Are you using a shared web hosting? If the answer is yes, shared web hosting is known for a slow hosting performance. In shared hosting environment, a hosting server is shared by a large number of websites and this will lead to performance issues.
As servers have a fixed CPU and memory, having ‘bad neighbours’ in your hosting environment will be a problem for you.
Take a look at SiteGround GoGeek plan:
SiteGround GoGeek plan is a great example of shared hosting done right. This particular plan comes with the highest tier of resources, means that you get more resources at one go, as compared to other tiers such as SiteGround Startup or SiteGround GrowBig plans.
If you are doing freelance web development, SiteGround GoGeek is also an awesome hosting plan because it comes with white-labelling which allows you to add client’s domains into your account without them seeing any SiteGround logo.
Speak To Your Web Hosting Support
Last but not least, speaking to the web hosting support might help you fix a slow loading website. You see, 50% of the ‘slow web hosting’ issues often originated from server level. By speaking and voicing out your concerns with the support team, they would be able to advise you on the matter.
Here’s the thing. Not every web hosting support will support you on that as it is rather out of their job scope. However, it is definitely worth the try to say the very least.
Summary: Fixing A Slow Web Hosting
There are many ways to fix a slow web hosting. More importantly, it is important to get this fixed once and for all because your website ranking is going to be affected badly with a slow web host.
If you are struggling with your web host below slow, I recommend you to change web host to something more affordable such as SiteGround.
