Website speed is arguably the most important factor of user experience and as such represents one thing webmasters should never compromise on. This is especially important for eCommerce sites, whose overall performance heavily depends on how quickly visitors can navigate through its pages.
In relation to eCommerce sites in particular, last year’s Radware report reveals that 51% of US-based online shoppers say site slowness is the top reason for abandoning a purchase. Furthermore, only a 2-second delay in page load time during a transaction may increase abandonment rates up to 87%.
Clearly, online users expect to see page contents loaded in 2 seconds or less and this is a requirement great websites simply must fulfill. Otherwise, a business will see decreased engagements and goal completions, which can be devastating. Even websites that do not directly sell products or services can benefit from improving their page load time, most notably in terms of SEO.
Dedicated to user experience as it is, Google takes page load time into account when determining your search positions, which is another reason to optimize it. Now, there are different ways to improve your website’s speed, especially if you use WordPress. As one of the world’s favorite CMSs, WordPress provides different features that can help you optimize your website for maximum performance in several relatively simple steps.
1. Keep caching.
Content caching, as enabled by the popular WS Total Cache or any other recommended plugin for this purpose, can dramatically improve your website’s speed. These plugins cache your contents as static files, thus minimizing the processing load on the server. As a result, your website is able to display posts and pages to a visitor in considerably less time. Additionally, caching enables WordPress to load your contents even if the server is temporarily unavailable, which is a great way to avoid any potential traffic losses in case your server goes down.
2. Uninstall unnecessary plugins.
It’s true that WordPress plugins can help you build an awesome site even if you have no coding skills, but too many of them can kill your website’s performance. This is especially the case if you’re hosting on a basic package where the disk space and bandwidth is very limited. Therefore, if you notice your website performs poorly in terms of page load time, the first thing you should do is review the Plugins section in your dashboard and remove those that have little or no purpose.
3. Optimize your images.
While the web increasingly moves towards visual content, too many images can burden your website, especially if they are not compressed. This is another thing that can significantly affect your website’s load time, especially on mobile devices. Optimizing images or smooth scaling across multiple screen sizes is essential to ensure your visitors will have an excellent experience regardless of the device they use.
To optimize your images, you can simply use an image optimization plugin such as WP Smush.it, EWWW Image Optimizer or Hammy. These are among the highest rated WordPress plugins and are likely to meet your expectations.
4. Migrate to a better-performing server.
The steps outlined above can definitely bring a significant performance boost, but none of this can actually work if you have a terrible host. Once you’ve exceeded the limits of basic hosting services and are ready to become more serious about delivering excellent user experience, you should definitely consider migrating to a premium plan with your current host, or try to find a reputable replacement. If you’re running an eCommerce store where every millisecond of downtime translates into lost purchases, you should contemplate advanced options such as managed VPS hosting solution. Although this is typically more expensive than a shared hosting option, it is always a good investment for businesses that heavily rely on online sales.
5. Focus on mobile.
Mobile optimization has become crucial in the last few years. The world increasingly relies on smartphones and tablets, expecting seamless experience on every website. Google suggests that mobile pages should be able to render above-the-fold content in a single second, which can be achieved by optimizing images, removing popups and abandoning automatic sliders. This will help you squeeze your content into fewer pixels and thus provide a better experience for your mobile visitors.
Of course, WordPress does have some great plugins to help you make your website more mobile-friendly and some of the ones you should definitely consider adding are WordPress Mobile Pack and WPtouch, which will also make your mobile publishing experience much better.
Sarah Green is an editor at Technivorz, where she covers top tech topics. She’s also interested in startups and web marketing, which are some of her favorite Twitter topics. Follow her on Twitter: @sarahh_green.
