Why Is Wix So Slow?
Do you have a slow loading website on Wix?
Google did an analysis of 900,000 websites where 53% of visitors on mobile devices left pages that took longer than 3 seconds to load.
Wix sites will have slow speeds if the website is content-heavy with a lot of large images, videos, or animations. It could also slow down due to complex pages, an abundant amount of text and content, third-party apps, using a lot of fonts, and/or a slow internet connection.
53% is over half your traffic, and they all leave if your site is slow! 😱
Keep reading to find out how to increase your Wix website speed.
Wix sites have a notorious reputation for being slow. People all across the internet and in the web-building world have given suggestions and tips to help improve the speed of a Wix site.
Google is continually placing more emphasis on website speed.
Website speed is part of search engine optimization.
A faster website with the same content will rank higher than a website with a slow loading speed. High rankings mean more traffic for your Wix website.
You want to make sure you optimize for search engines to serve your website visitors as best as you can.
You have to keep in mind your site’s visitors have different internet connections with different loading speeds.
Stop wondering why is Wix so slow. Follow these 10 great tips to get your Wix website running faster in no time!
Quick Preparation: Figure Out If Your Wix Website Is Slow
You can get a Wix speed test to know how fast your Wix site is by using Google’s Page Speed Insights tool, which is free. Or check your page speed in Wix Analytics.
Google’s tool will tell you exactly why is Wix so slow specifically for your website.
A Google Page Speed Insight report is a gold mine for improving page speed. *But that info is for more advanced users comfortable with code, you just want to know your speed from there.
The tips below however are all EASY QUICK fixes that will have the fastest impact for ANY Wix site!
1. Optimize All Images, Videos, and Animations
Images and videos take up a ton of space on the website. They are usually one of the main culprits of slow websites and slow page speed.
Wix recommends that you have an image that is 1200 x 630 pixels or smaller, depending on the size you need it to occupy. This will ensure that you have high quality images on both monitors & mobile devices screens but they will not take eons to load in the browser.
It may also be handy to consider not using so many images! Images are great and can make for a beautiful website, but if you use too many of them and slow down your website’s functionality, it will be a pretty website that no one sees.
Try to limit yourself to a few images on all web pages and avoid gratuitous image animations or things like galleries or sliders. Choose single static images and only use them in small amounts to avoid speed issues.
An employee from Wix who posted on Quora.com suggests that you use JPG images, not PNG or another format. They recommended this because JPGs are usually smaller and easier for computers to download and process.
Wix also has functionalities that compress images & convert them from JPG to WebP, making them easier to process and load on most browsers.
Since the Wix employee posted this comment, Wix has updated their system and made it so that PNGs are also converted to WebP to download quicker. However, it is still best practice to upload JPGs instead.
2. Limit the Number of Elements on Each Page
Each element you add is another couple of MB’s of slow loading affecting page speed, so try to keep pages simple. Each page should probably have no more than 10 elements. Wix, as a website builder, offers a variety of different elements like these in the Wix Editor:
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It would probably be best to have short, concise pages with only a few elements and whose main element is text. Text is easily read by browsers and loads much faster than other elements.
It may also be helpful to use elements on the desktop version of your site and avoid using them on the mobile site when possible. This will add functionality to your site when they are on a desktop with better internet but still allow them to access key content from the mobile version of the site.
This will be a huge step in figuring out why is wix so slow for you.
3. Have a Simple & Basic Homepage
The homepage is the very first thing people see when they load your site. It is one of the most important pages on a site. Here is a full post with actual data I collected showing just how important your homepage is.
What a home page does and how it does it – to learn that check out this article I wrote. A homepage should define the purpose of your website and give the visitor a call to action. It needs to make a great first impression! (Yes! I have two whole articles on home pages that’s how important they are!)
It needs to be simple, concise, and to the point without unnecessary text and images. Avoid slow loading home page speed like your website depends on it.
Wix recommends that you space out your content between multiple pages to avoid overloading a single piece of your website. That way, you won’t have to sacrifice your hard-earned content, but you will still be able to optimize your loading speed. (Source)
4. Avoid Using Additional Apps Not Made by Wix
Wix has a feature that allows you to attach apps to your website. Using web applications can be a great way to add different functionality to your site. Wix, as a website builder, has over 300 apps that you can add to your website.
This is a great benefit for people using Wix. However, you should limit the use of apps to ones labeled ‘Made by Wix,’ third party website apps might slow down your website page speed. This is usually not a problem because of the sheer quantity of apps that Wix offers.
The apps can add things like a booking calendar, an e-commerce platform, forums, photo galleries, and an event calendar. Those are just the apps that Wix supports.
Apps made by Wix are built to accommodate the Wix platform and do not need to use an iframe like the other third-party apps that cause speed issues.
When using iframes you also need to check to make sure your visitors all use supported browsers.
Iframes require coding and scripts that essentially force your website to run a browser within the website. This happens every time somebody loads a page with one of those third-party website apps adding more load time and slowing down your site.
5. Use The Wix Mobile Editor
On your phone wondering why is wix so slow?
Using the mobile editor will greatly help speed up your website page speed, and here’s why. If you are making your website, it is important to make it look nice and present the information well on all devices.
These days people look at more websites on their phones & mobile devices than they do on their computers.
This is great, but smartphones load websites in a different format than a desktop does. It compresses everything into a longer, more narrow format and makes everything take less space, avoiding speed issues.
If the website is not specifically prepared to load on a smartphone, it will take more loading time to reconfigure everything to look good on mobile.
There is a simple solution to this: Use the mobile editor. The mobile editor in Wix is specifically there to allow the creator to make a separate format for mobile users.
This format will automatically load when your site is pulled up on a mobile device, reducing the amount of work the device has to do to pull up the site. This will make your website faster on mobile because it no longer has to run the desktop & responsive code on its own.
6. Use Standard Fonts
There are so many fonts and typefaces that are beautiful and unique available online these days. People love to see and use these, but if you want to have a fast site that is legible to everyone, this is probably a trend you should opt-out of. Custom fonts require code that downloads the site to the user’s device, which can cause quite the lag on loading time.
Most operating systems on devices generally have standardized fonts already on the machine that do not need to be downloaded to view your website.
These fonts are referred to as web safe fonts and include Georgia, Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, Garamond, Brush Script MT, Tahoma, Trebuchet Ms, Verdana, and Courier New. (Source)
The “safest” fonts are Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, & Courier New. These fonts are available on more operating systems than the others.
The others, while considered web-safe, aren’t supported by as many devices as the previous four. These are Verdana, Georgia, Comic Sans, Trebuchet, Arial Black, and Impact.
7. Create a Simple Header
Of all the things to load on your site, the header will probably be the first thing to load. At the top, it will be the first thing that people see.
It needs to do a good job capturing people’s attention while the rest of the site’s content on the homepage loads. Generally, it is suggested that you include a logo, your company name, main navigation, and a call to action (CTA) button.
While your header should include the previously mentioned items, they should still be simple and clear. When creating anything that consumers might look at, making it simple and clear is your best bet.
People like to look at things that tell them the information in the fastest and simplest way possible. This means that if your header tastefully and clearly displays the necessary information, the visitor will be much more likely to continue using your website.
Avoid filling your website with all sorts of information & content. This will increase your page speed making it take much less time to load.
8. Get Wix Turbo – Speed Boost
Wix Turbo is an update you can install for free on your Wix page. It is specifically designed to reduce loading times, present pixel-perfect pages, and make your site more quickly accessible from all over the world.
By greatly increasing your website speed, Wix Turbo will help bring & keep more traffic on your website.
This add-on is an obvious choice if you are looking to speed up your website, loading time, and user experience. Your Wix page should automatically download Wix Turbo as it is an added benefit for all creators signed up for a Wix website.
If it has not downloaded automatically, you may need to install updates on your Wix profile manually.
This is a no brainer fix to avoid having to question why your site is being slow or why is wix so slow.
9. Limit Add-Ons
Add-ons are a great feature of Wix, but they can slow down your website considerably if there are too many.
Some complex ones slow your site down more than others, like the social media stream add-on, which instantly updates a stream of your social media at all times. Some smaller ones only slow your site down a little bit, like the comments add-on that allows visitors to leave comments on your site.
While add-ons may improve the functionality of your website and the user experience, they can be the big culprit making your website run slow. Try using no more than two complex add-ons, and limit the number of simpler add-ons to between 5 and 8.
10. Enable Caching
Caching is a process that has been used to speed up all sorts of websites, including Wix ones. Caching speeds up your website by creating a cache in a temporary storage location every time visitors click on your website.
On Wix websites, this cache can be saved & reused every time that visitor or a new visitor with a similar demographic or device views your website, making the site take less time to load.
Users with different geographical locations depending on your host will need their own caches that your site’s server will use to speed up their loading time.
A user’s device can use a cache instead of downloading the entire website again, which decreases the loading time. Caching should already be automatically enabled on your Wix website, but you should double-check that it’s working by following these instructions here.
Conclusion: Why is Wix So Slow?
Now you know why is Wix slow. Ready to increase your slow website speed?
Limit all images, videos, animations, gifs, third-party apps, add-ons, fonts, and content.
Only use what you need and regularly test your website speed.
Look at your site visitors and conversions and see if any content you added was worth the loading time.
FAQ
Why is Wix bad?
Wix is a popular website builder, but it has some serious drawbacks that you should be aware of before using it to build your site.
1)First and foremost, Wix is a proprietary platform, which means you don’t own your website. So if you’re paying for it you’re essentially renting it from Wix, and if you stop paying, your website will be taken down.
2) By using a proprietary website builder your website is slowed down by all the necessary framework that is used by the site’s content to make the builder work.
3) Wix doesn’t allow you to install third-party applications or plugins not on their app market, so you’re limited in how you can customize your site.
How long does Wix take to publish?
If you’re using Wix to create a website, you may be wondering how long it will take to publish your site. The answer can vary depending on a few factors, but in general, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes for your site to go live.
One factor that can affect how long it takes to publish your site is the size of your site. If you have a lot of content and/or images, it may take a bit longer to publish than if you have a smaller site.
Another factor that can affect publish time is whether or not you have all of your content ready to go before you hit the “publish” button. If you’re still working on adding content or making changes, it will take longer to publish than if your site is complete.
In most cases, though, you should be able to publish your Wix site in just a few minutes. So, if you’re ready to make your site public, hit that button and see how quickly your site goes live!
Are Wix websites slow?
First, it’s important to understand how Wix works. Wix is a platform that allows you to create a website using pre-built templates and tools.
This means that your website is built on their infrastructure, which can be slower than if you were to build your website from scratch.
There are a few other things that can affect the speed of a Wix website:
– The size and number of images on the site
– The amount of code on the site
– The number of plugins or third-party applications being used
– The hosting plan that you’re using
Is Squarespace faster than Wix?
Wix is slightly faster on both mobile and desktop devices compared to Squarespace.
Squarespace sites tested here loaded in 3.5 seconds. Wix is quicker, but not by much, taking 3.2 seconds on average.
People are less likely to stay on your site if it takes too long to load.
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