Website speed matters. It is one of the factors that have a direct impact on your bounce rate, which consequently impacts your ranking on Google and other major search engines. There are a lot of different tools out there, many of which are free, that can tell you how long it takes for your website to load. Research shows that 47 per cent of consumers expect a web page to load within two seconds, so you should always be aiming for below this. If your website is currently slow and you can't figure out why, here are some of the things that could be slowing your website down.

• Large media files are increasing your loading times - I would recommend using an image analysis tool to discover more about the performance of the images on your website. Media files, including images and videos, can be big in terms of file size. If you do not optimise them through compressing the file, this could be why your website is taking so long to load. There are lots of great online tools that provide effective image compression, so this is something that you can easily resolve. 

• Your site's CSS has not been optimised - The CSS of your website is the code that is responsible for styling its pages. If it has not been optimised, it can delay loading. There are a number of different solutions that can help you to ensure your CSS is working for your website. The first is using 'media types' to specify when specific CSS files should be loaded. You can also use inline CSS to replace external CSS. If you have a number of external CCS files, another option is to combine them into one or a few files. 

• You do not use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) - A CDN is basically a number of servers that are situated in geographic locations strategically. You can store a number of different site copies on them, enabling your pages to be loaded at speed by individuals who are situated far away from your main server. 

• Pages are being delayed due to render-blocking JavaScript - Last but not least, JavaScript is the code that makes your site functional and interactive for visitors. If you don't use it, your site is going to be on the dull side. Nevertheless, if you do not optimise JavaScript, it can delay your pages when users try to load them in their browsers. Whenever a browser attempts to show a site, it has to stop and completely load the JavaScript files first. This is what causes render-blocking JavaScript. There are a few things you can do, though, including deferring JavaScript from loading until the user can see the rest of the page and using inline JavaScript instead of external JavaScript files. 

So there you have it: some of the different factors that can have an impact on the performance of your website. By using the information that has been provided above, you should be able to get to the bottom of why your website is slow to load. You will be able to make one or several adjustments that can reduce the load time for your site. This should, in turn, reduce the number of people that turn away from your website quickly, helping you to create a more positive impression on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the other search engine providers that people may use.