In chrome, open the console and take a look at the network waterfall. From here you can see:
- how long is the server taking to respond.
- how long is it taking resources to download (css, js, etc.).
You need to debug all of these. I rarely find that server is an issue, coz unless you're doing something monstrous in PHP for example, she'll execute pretty quick. The general cause for a slow page are too many resources loading in the head of the website, because these must load before showing output. In that regard, do the following:
-only have CSS loading in the head and combine it all into a single file. It should be gzipped too when it loads.
-move all JS to the bottom if possible. IT's good practice to get into the hang of this when started off a development.
This way, the page will render even if the rest of the resources are still loading, i.e. it looks fast to the user. Having multiple CSS files will clog up the speed too, because there's only so many simultaneous downloads a browser will accept (which I think is 12).
But the best thing you can do it just debug what is slow, and the starting point is the console / network waterfall
