Every Internet user these days has an insatiable need for speed. They consider web pages that take more than three seconds to load as slow ones.

You may have implemented the best on-page SEO practices on your website, but if its pages are slow-loading, visitors will likely move on to much faster websites.

There are several reasons why your pages take forever to load.

Are you using large and high-resolution images on your website? If so, then that is the likely culprit for your website’s turtle-paced loading time. Such images consume lots of bandwidth as they load, slowing the site down in the process.

You need to optimize them to reduce the overall file size and retain overall image quality at the same time. You can use image optimization plugins and tools that automatically compress images without any noticeable loss in quality.

If your website is running on WordPress and you have one too many plugins, they may be the ones slowing your site down.

Keep in mind that each plugin loads JavaScript, has a CSS file, and makes file requests.

If you run a lot of these plugins, don’t be surprised by the slow speed. If you want to speed things up, try running fewer plugins, or better yet, keep only those plugins that are necessary, and dump the rest.

Sometimes, however, it’s something as basic as the web hosting provider that’s the immediate culprit for your site’s atrocious speeds.

It’s understandable if you went for the web hosting company that offered the cheapest rates, but remember that cheaper hosting packages tend to be the ones that provide inferior speeds. You get what you pay for.

If you want faster site speed, do your research and find a better hosting package or web hosting company.

Whatever is causing your pages' slow loading speed, you must do something about it. Check out the infographic below to see why you need to boost your page speed.

Thank you to Shawn Byrne of SEOPhoenix for contributing this article.