WordPress is one platform that has fulfilled the dreams of millions of people out there. People who aspire to open their own website lookup to WordPress because it is user-friendly and comes with multiple themes and plugins options. But, apart from opening a website, uploading content, and promoting your content, there is one more thing you have to work on. The speed at which your website loads is one of the most important criteria you must never overlook. Don’t you think you too would press the back button if a website takes forever to load? The same goes for everybody too. But we are here to help you with 5 easy steps to speed up your WordPress website.
Can WordPress site speed be a game changer for your website?
Yes, it is definitely going to be an important factor in increasing your site’s performance. Let’s get into the reason for speeding up your WordPress site to get a clear idea of it.
- Google is the ultimate decision-maker for your website. If your website has faster-loading time then the search engine has to rank you higher than your slow-loading competitors because loading time is one of Google’s ranking indicators.
- In case, your website is known then the user may wait for a few seconds but not in the case of a new website. If studies are to be believed, visitors do not wait for more than 2 seconds for the site to load. The bounce rate in such a scenario is more than 45 percent. It wasn’t the same earlier. There has been a significant drop in the waiting time of visitors until the webpage loads. So you must be prepared for the worst-case scenario. You can also head towards PageSpeed Insights free tool to check your site’s speed!
- In case, you own a website that sells goods then visitors’ attention is your topmost priority. If the WordPress site takes longer than 3 seconds then the first time visitors wouldn’t even return. In fact, research claims that a one-second delay in webpage loading time results in a 7% drop in conversion rate.
Steps That You Can Follow To Speed Up WordPress Website
Good WordPress Hosting Is The Key.
A good WordPress hosting means much more than good bandwidth, emails, and domains. We are talking about the shared hosting options that most of us choose. If you are going to share your server then the other websites sharing it will impact your services too. Consider an example, a website has a lot of traffic then it will directly impact the server. Now, you share the same server so indirectly it will impact your WordPress site. Thus, choose a dedicated cloud server for your site.
But, there is more you can do.
#1: Image Optimization Is Necessary
No one likes reading content without images. The images make the content more interactive and website owners try to add the best images for good results. If you download an image then do you check its file size? Do you have an idea about the image formats? This is where we need to be careful. The PNG image format is uncompressed resulting in larger file size while the JPG file format is compressed with smaller file size. A large file size takes a lot of time to load so make sure you optimize the images before uploading them.
#2: Content Delivery Network Is Necessary
Do you know page-loading time is related to the location of your web hosting servers too? You certainly don’t want your site to be limited to only a certain region. Consider an example, you have taken a web hosting from a server whose location is the United Kingdom. Now, the visitors who reside in or near the United Kingdom will experience faster loading time as compared to the ones living in the United States.
But, there is a solution, the Content Delivery Network. It is a group of servers that are located at multiple locations around the world. All the servers will store static files of your WordPress website so that whenever someone visits the site, the page immediately loads the static files stored in a nearby location. It will reduce the task of web hosting servers resulting in even faster results.
#3: Go For Speed Optimizing Themes
Most of us search a theme and decide whether to install it or not on the basis of its looks and content structure. But, anything that you are planning to upload is going to be displayed using the theme. Thus, it’s important for you to make sure the theme is optimized for faster loading time. Some of the WordPress themes are known for their impressive look but poor coding practice. These lead to a direct impact on your site’s loading time. So go for the premium WordPress theme options that are coded well.
#4: Directly Uploading An Audio Or Video File Is A Clear No
We know you might be practicing this for quite a while but that shouldn’t be done. If you will upload the audio or video file directly then it will take up space on your bandwidth.
Just because you are offered an unlimited bandwidth option doesn’t mean you have to exploit it. It is important to understand that the lesser you keep the easier it would load the WordPress website page. In fact, the backup size will shoot up too. Instead, look for the video or audio hosting services like YouTube. Use their bandwidth and still showcase amazing videos on your website.
#5: Split and Rule
The splitting technique works on the WordPress website too. What is the first thing that comes to your mind for improving your webpage’s ranking? It certainly is adding more content and images as longer posts are given more importance by the search engines. But, wouldn’t that mean slow loading time as there is a huge amount of data to be loaded? This can be strategized by dividing a post into multiple pages. You can simply add a navigation button or anchor text for your visitors to read more about the topic. In this way, you will add more information without compromising your website’s speed.
Conclusion
If you follow all the steps mentioned above then we are sure your WordPress website will speed up. From hosting service to splitting WordPress content, everything is focussed on better user experience. We assure you there will be an increase in your web page traffic and reduced bounce rate. Do let us know what is your opinion on these points so that we can improve accordingly.
