Does Elementor Slow Down Your Site?

Have you ever built a website before? Does Elementor slow down your site? What are the main guilty culprits in slowing your site down and how can you remedy them?

Does Elementor Slow Down Your Site?

No, Elementor doesn’t slow down your site. Your website’s performance and speed depend on several different factors like hosting, optimization, and more. Understanding how Elementor works can help you have a lightning fast site without issue.

Personally, I love watching a website come to life.

It’s kind of your baby, know what I mean? And while the best performing websites tend to be simple and clean, there’s always a part of us that wants that “wow” factor.

Enter Elementor: A drag and drop page builder allowing you to build a dynamic website WITHOUT needing to know a line of code.

I used Elementor to build my Batman Travels website to share all my travels. As you can see from the page speed screen shot above, it’s fast, responsive, and was a lot of fun to put it together.

So why does Elementor sometimes get the bad rap of slowing your website down?

The Impact of Page Builders on Website Performance

First of all, why is a slow website bad?

Think about it, you arrive at a website that, according to Google, has the answer you’ve been searching for! Perfect!

But instead of finding it… you’re waiting, waiting, waiting for it to load.

Slow load times lead to a bad user experience which leads to high bounce rates. If your site has a high bounce rate that means no one is sticking around to leave comments, engage, or check out anything else your website has to offer.

Do you think Google is going to like that? Nope.

The Role of Elementor in Website Load Time

So where do page builders like Elementor enter this equation?

Like most all page builders, Elementor does add extra code to your website.

And with its easy drag and drop functionality, we can sometimes go overboard (yes, it can happen!) as we add element after element after element to our “masterpiece”.

That’s usually the culprit to a slow website right there: operator error.

The more features we add the slower our website can become. Elementor also adds javascript and CSS to a page, and if it’s not properly optimized, it can absolutely slow down your website.

But as Elementor has evolved and been updated, it’s actually become more and more streamlined, adding less and less code to achieve the same eye catching effects we love.

Built in features like image optimization and caching also help Elementor to combat those slow page load times.

Common Reasons for Slowdowns with Elementor

So if it isn’t obvious enough already, WE (the user) tend to be the reason our website is running slow. Not Elementor.

We want that awesome fade-in text within a main heading, that amazing gallery of images with text overlays that randomly fade into the post, block by block!

Or how about a background image that moves with the scroll and an overlay of posts the fade in above it.

We want all the things!
And you can actually have them! You just need to implement them correctly!

Here are the 5 most common reason for Elementor slowing down your website. And don’t worry, they’re all fixable!

1. Large page size. Remember what I said about page builders adding code to our site? Well when we go nuts adding all those feature and elements it can add up. The more elements we add the slower your site can become.
2. Unoptimized images. Anyone who’s built a website before knows that this one is true for all sites, not just page builders like Elementor. Make sure you optimize your images so they don’t take so long to load.
3. Plugins not playing well with one another. Some plugins you have on your website may not function well with Elementor’s plugins. If your page has suddenly slowed to a crawl, a simple troubleshoot of your plugins could bring the culprit to light.
4. Slow hosting. Even when a website is optimized for speed, slow hosting can absolutely affect your website’s performance.
5. Custom add ons. If you add your own css to a page make sure it’s optimized. Sometimes we blame a page builder like Elementor when it’s our own modifications that are slowing the website down.

Best Practices for Using Elementor Without Sacrificing Speed

Not so coincidentally, the best practices and good habits we can form when using Elementor go hand in hand with the common reasons for slowdowns!

Follow these practices and your Elementor website will be lightning fast!

Here are the 5 best practices for using Elementor without slowing down your website!

1. K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid! (You’d be surprised just how often this principle fixes a problem.) In a nutshell, don’t go nuts with the elements and features you want to add to your page. Remember, less is more!
2. Optimize your images. There are several great plugins for optimizing images. Find one you like and it’s all done for you in the background! No problem!
3. Use a fast hosting service. Slow hosting sucks! And fast hosting doesn’t have to be expensive at all.
4. Use a caching plugin. Caching reduces the amount of data that has to be loaded each time someone visits your site. There are great ones available.
5. Avoid using too many plugins. This goes hand in hand with the K.I.S.S. principle. Less is more! Yes we all love plugins but there are so many that you don’t actually need! Make sure the ones you have play well with one another.

Final Thoughts

Elementor is a solid page builder that allows you to bring your website to life without needing to know a single line of code. Fight the urge to go overboard with the elements you use while using image optimization and caching plugins to ensure your Elementor website is lightning fast!

So what do you think? Personally, I feel the hardest part is identifying the culprits!

Once we know what the most common issues can be, it’s relatively easy to reverse engineer the fix.

Have you tried building a website with Elementor? Get started with Elementor here! What was your experience like? Have you found other common issues using Elementor that have slowed your site down?

Let me know! Leave any questions or comments in the comments section below! I’d love to hear what you have to say and I always respond.

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