A slow website is just as bad as having no website in 2020. You have finally accomplished building your business WordPress website, and you are not seeing significant traffic or visitors. Despite what experts and business owners say about the potential of having a website, it seems like a “broken promise” in your case. Now, you are left to ask yourself what you did wrong. There can be many reasons you’re not getting the reach you envisaged, but the first and most important thing to look at is how long your web page takes to load.
Why Do You Need a Fast WordPress Website?
Fast-loading pages directly contribute to page views, SEO, and user experience. By having a fast-loading website, you can obtain the benefits a website can offer. So, how exactly can a fast WordPress website help you boost sales and leads?
Based on a study, most web visitors expect a website to load in less than two seconds. Once it takes more than three seconds to load, assume the visitor will abandon your page. This scenario is common since users will mostly lose their patience while waiting for it to load.
Leaving your page is not the only consequence a slow website can do. It starts to affect your bounce and conversion rates negatively. In the end, it causes a decline in traffic ranking – which will eventually cause a reduction in sales. Thus, it is not enough to own a website. Instead, a fast-loading and efficient website is what you need to achieve success in your online marketing journey.
You also may have heard that Google uses page speed and load as one of their algorithms for ranking your website. With a slow site, Google and other search engines will rank you lower than your competitors in search engine result pages (SERP), giving others a competitive edge.
How Do You Speed Up Your Site?
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Invest in a Good Web Host
One of the most common ways to improve site performance is by choosing a quality host for your website. Currently, there are numerous cheap hosts available in the market. However, this type of host commonly oversells their services, which can quickly slow down your site. Also, shared hosting lets the so-called “bad neighbours” take up your CPU and RAM, making your website slow and unresponsive.
Thus, the best option is to find a hosting provider that offers speed while balancing costs.
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Update to the Latest Versions – if possible
Your website must also keep up with the technological changes happening across the web. With this, you need to update to the new versions of web technologies such as PHP and HTML. Improved speed is attainable by staying current with the latest improvements and features.
Aside from its core technology, WordPress also conducts its software and server updates. For each of its versions, WordPress offers new features and bug fixes. Similarly, these updates also increase your security. As a result, you may expect to have a more efficient and faster loading time for your website.
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Reduce Your Plugins
As most people say, “less is more”. Plugins are known by many as they help implement codes and customise your website. However, by installing too many plugins, it slows down your server.
You can effectively limit the number of your plugins by finding a theme that fits your website. You may also decide to cover it by customizing your PHP. Lastly, you may choose which one could replace them with what you currently have. This step changes a series of plugins with one.
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Optimise Your Media
The images and videos that you insert affect how your website will perform. It can’t be denied that WordPress can host several graphics like videos and pictures. However, adding such will bulk up your pages. Most importantly, these graphics will make your site large and more complex to back up.
To optimise them, you can start by resizing your images. You may also choose to auto-embed them in your content. This way, your website wouldn’t take up too much size and space.
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Test Your Website Speed
Numerous sites can check the performance of your website. Through speed testing, you will be able to determine the issues that your website currently has. This way, you’ll have a concrete idea of what you should and shouldn’t change on your site. Although this tip doesn’t involve any of its features, knowing your current standing helps you improve its speed.
Improving a website’s speed is a risky task to do. Commonly, you should avoid several features, but it should not affect the overall performance of your website. Seek help from the experts! Contact us now for a free consultation.
