There are dozens of possible reasons why this could be the case. Below are some steps you can take to speed up your site or decrease load time:
- Better hosting = faster server – The most common reason for slow sites is a slow server. If you are on cheap shared hosting, it’s likely that your host has many thousands of other sites on the same server. Since all those sites share the same server resources, there’s not much you can do to offset the lack of speed.
- Plugins – Lower number of plugins. Many plugins load several files, are poorly coded, or simply have broken links which cause slower sites. Deactivate all your plugins and retest your site to see if any plugins are causing slowness.
- Cache – Install a cache plugin such as W3 Total Cache. Furthermore, try Cloudflare if you’re really tech-savvy.
- Ads – Lower number of ads which results in less external requests for data. Each ad is served by an ad network which has to deliver that ad to your site (i.e., takes time)
- HTTP Requests – Lower number of http requests to site by reducing the number of posts visible on your homepage.
- Social Networks – Remove any third-party scripts taking too long to load (example: facebook, twitter, youtube, etc.)
- Images – Lower the number of images displayed on your homepage
- Images – Optimize your images for the web (save for web). Unoptimized images will slow down sites.
- Images – Do not use very large images
- Broken Links – make sure there are no broken images or links on your site
- Redirects – Avoid redirects on site
- Videos – Lower number of videos to see if that improves site speed.