Why Make Your WordPress Website Load Faster?

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You may be aware that many people talk about making a WordPress website load faster, but don’t really understand why.  We can enlighten you: there are 2 very important reasons why you should care about the loading speed of your website.

Reason 1 – Improved User Experience

For website users there is nothing more annoying than clicking on a website link and waiting……. and waiting for the pages to load.  If that happens, they’re more likely than not to shut the tab down and head off to another website with a faster load speed.  And this doesn’t just apply to desktop users; mobile visitors want to use speedy websites too.

On eCommerce websites, users want to navigate round the site, look at all the pretty things on offer, add things to their wish list, pop things in their basket, then checkout and pay – all without being delayed by slow loading pages.  In fact website loading speed is so important for online shoppers that it has a direct impact on return visits, site loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations.

There are some fascinating statistics which underline the above points:

  • If your website pages take 4 seconds to load, 25% of users will abandon the website
  • 73% of mobile internet users say that they’ve encountered a website that was too slow to load
  • 79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with website performance are less likely to buy from the same site again
  • 44% of online shoppers will tell their friends about a bad experience online.

More details on loading speed can be viewed in this great infographic from Kissmetrics*.

 

Take a look at the final comment on the infographic:

“If an e-commerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1 second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year.”

Now that is worth thinking about!

Reason 2 – Google Likes Speedy Sites

As detailed above, a slow loading website creates a poor user experience – and frankly that makes Google fume!  As Google continuously strives to offer up the very best of websites to its searchers, those with slow page speeds will be seen as the poor relations, and won’t rank as highly in result listings as the faster performing sites.  And that goes for both desktop and mobile websites.

However recent research by Google shows that the average loading speed for a mobile page is 22 seconds – but 53% of people will abandon the mobile site if they have to wait beyond 3 seconds for it to load!

Many mobile users must be continually irritated by the websites they try to access on their smartphone or tablet.  No wonder Google pushes those sites lower down their search engine results list!  And as more and more people search on mobile device, can you really afford to not rank well in the search results because your mobile site is very sluggish?

How Can I Check My Website Speed?

If you want Google to push your website higher up the rankings and want to keep your website visitors happy, you need to check your site loading speed, and if necessary make your WordPress website load faster.

Use the simple Google “test my site” tool by simply entering your website url.

Google shows us how it should look:

wordpress website load faster

How Can I Make My WordPress Website Load Faster?

There are a number of fundamental steps you should take, including optimising your images, choosing WordPress plugins carefully and choosing the right host.  For more details, check our blog here

 

We hope that this simple overview of the importance of website loading speed has inspired you to check your own WordPress website loading speed – and to take action if it’s poor.

We offer a WordPress optimisation service if you require help with any technical elements involved in improving your loading speed.  Just contact us for a no obligation chat!

 

*Infographic from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/

6 Simple Steps to Speed Up Your WordPress Site

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If you’re using a WordPress site, you have already made at least one good decision towards the online success of your business. Now you need to optimize your site’s performance to ensure that you get the best results from it, and one way to do that, is by enhancing its load speed.

A site that loads slowly, will result in poor search engine performance, reduced conversions and a loss of traffic. Research has shown a direct link between visitor retention and:

  • page speed
  • bounce rate
  • visitor retention
  • profit

Additionally, Google has acknowledged that page speed is used as a factor in rankings. Why? Because page speed affects the user experience. Users don’t want to wait more than 3 seconds for a page to be loaded, and therefore, fast pages will be ranked higher in the search results pages.

Speed Up Your WordPress Site In Six Simple Steps

1.   Choose the right host

A reliable web host that uses DNS and is configured specifically for WordPress is crucial for your site’s performance. Your site should be hosted on servers that understand WordPress.

2.  Choose the right framework

When it comes to choosing the right framework for your WordPress site, you can’t go wrong with Genesis. It is made for WordPress and it uses the latest best practices in terms of code for best functioning. Additionally, Genesis offers responsive themes, which automatically change its resolution based on the device on which it is viewed. Since a large percentage of consumers view sites on mobile, it will open your site up to a whole new market.

3.  Install a clean theme

Clean coding is key to a fast WordPress site, and that’s why you should opt for the cleanest theme you can find. You can rely on StudioPress to deliver just that, with every single theme they create.

4.  Install a caching plugin

W3 EDGE provides an awesome plugin, known as W3 Total Cache. This tool provides fragment caching support for Genesis-powered sites.  It provides increased control over granular caching and enables faster load times.

5.  Be picky about your plugins

With so many different plugins at your disposal, it is tempting to install as many as your disk space will allow, but don’t.  Stick to the basics, and keep only those plugins that you need for your site to function as it should. With that, be sure to only install plugins that are supported and that use solid, clean code.

6.  Optimise your images

Large images take longer to load, especially if you receive a lot of traffic to your site. Therefore, you should optimise your images and compressing them in order to reduce the amount of bandwidth used when they are loaded.

There are many ways to do this, including:

Photoshop – Reduce the size of your image to the exact dimensions required on your site, and choose the most appropriate format. Select low compression settings.

WP Smush.it – Another cool WordPress plugin, Smush will take all the legwork out of compressing your images.

These simple tips should help you to speed your site up significantly. You can test the speed before and after, using Pingdom.