The 5 Best Practices for Improving your WordPress Website Speed
What Is Page Speed?
Page Speed is the time it takes for a page to load on a user’s device. The slower the page speed, the less likely it is that the user will stick around to see your content. Page speed is a major factor in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and can impact your rankings.
With today’s high expectations from customers, you can’t afford to have a site that takes too long to load. People expect websites to load fast, so you need one in order to meet your visitors’ expectations and keep them on your website.
Page loading speed is determined by different factors, including how many images are on the page, how many plugins are installed, coding and server-side scripts (which can vary between pages), and other factors. When all of these elements work together seamlessly, users will be able to navigate your website with ease and without any frustrating delays.
However, if your website isn’t running as smoothly as you’d like it to, don’t worry! There are ways you can improve its performance. In this article, we’ll outline five best practices that will help make your WordPress site faster loading.
Why Is Page Speed Important?
Page speed is important because it can impact user experience, SEO, and revenue. Slow page speeds can lead to users abandoning a website, lower rankings in the SERPs (search engine results page), and decreased revenue due to lost sales. Page speed is, therefore, an important consideration for any website.
Faster Websites Are Better For SEO And Conversion Rate
Website speed is measured in milliseconds. The faster your website loads, the better it will perform for SEO purposes because Google uses speed as an aspect of ranking.
Customers expect web pages to load in less than a couple of seconds. In fact, smartphone users are 50% more likely to anticipate making a purchase immediately while using their phone than they were one year ago (Think with Google).
With more people purchasing on their phones, it is essential to have a fast site that can compete. If you don’t, then the traffic might go elsewhere and revenue could be lost. This also applies to people browsing on a desktop. They are more likely to stick around on your page if it loads quickly and they’re more likely to buy from you if they have a good experience on your site.
Faster pages rank higher than slower pages, so improving your page speed can help you rank higher in search results and bring more traffic to your page.
If you are looking for a company that can help you turn your WordPress website into a highly optimized and fast one that gets traffic, look no further. Contact our team at WP Gazelle to get started!
How To Improve Mobile Site Speed
There are several things you can do to ensure that your website provides a great user experience on mobile devices.
- Make sure all of your content is easy to access and navigate.
- Reduce the size of any images or videos so they don’t slow down the loading process.
- Make sure all links open in new tabs so users don’t have to go back and forth between pages.
Improving your website speed can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Not only do you need to focus on optimizing performance for desktop users, but also mobile users as well. Make sure you measure these things during the early stages of any project- so that you can hit the ground running!
How To Improve Your Website Page Speed
Page speed is a critical factor in any website’s success. No one wants to wait for a page to load, especially when there are so many other options available. To keep up with the competition and meet users’ expectations, it’s important to employ some best practices for improving website page speed.
Ensuring that your website loads quickly is essential for keeping users engaged and satisfied. Fortunately, following these five best practices will help you do just that!
Optimize Hosting
When you’re looking for WordPress hosting, you’ll want to make sure it’s optimized specifically for WordPress. Excellent hosting providers will offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, so your website visitors will always be able to access your site.
Remember, your hosting plan plays a big role in how quickly your website loads. Make sure you are on a good host that offers caching, compression, and Gzip compression. You should also make sure that you are using a content delivery network (CDN) to serve your static files.
Use Mobile-First Code
Using Mobile-First Code means that your site will be designed and coded for mobile devices first, and then optimized for larger screens. Mobile-first code takes into account the smaller screen size and limited bandwidth of mobile devices, which can often result in a better user experience than sites that are not designed with mobile in mind.
Use standard HTML tags and styles, keep font sizes small and avoid complex layouts. Once your design is complete, use a responsive design tool to convert it to a format that will work on all devices. Finally, test your site on different browsers and devices to make sure that it looks and performs well on all of them.
Optimize Images And Video
Images and video are the two biggest factors that slow down a website.
Reduce file sizes by compressing images, optimize videos for size and quality, use HTML5 instead of Flash to display videos, and use Google Web Fonts to avoid loading fonts.
Websites today use lots of videos, animations, and images. In addition to making sure they are optimized, you need to gain access to these assets. With WP Gazelle we offer a range of services including superior hosting, free access to our library of stock images, audio, image animations with SVG gator toolset, and video as needed on the website.
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Reduce The Number Of Plugins
To improve the speed of your site, you should reduce the number of plugins that are running on it. Many different types of plugins can slow down WordPress sites and make them more difficult to maintain.
Each plugin is designed to do a specific job, but some plugins are superfluous and don’t provide any additional functionality. For example, it’s possible to add social sharing buttons using a WordPress feature, so using plugins for this purpose might not be necessary.
Additionally, some plugins may need to be updated on your site frequently to keep them running correctly. This can slow down the site unnecessarily and cause issues with compatibility if you aren’t updating those plugins regularly.
Minify And Combine CSS, JavaScript, And HTML Files
Minifying files removes unnecessary characters, such as spaces and comments, without changing the functionality of the code. Combining multiple files into one file reduces the number of HTTP requests made to the server, which can improve website page speed.
To minify and combine CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files:
- In your text editor or IDE, open the minified and combined file that you want to work with.
- Make any necessary changes to the code.
- Save your changes and close the file.
- Upload the file to your webserver.
Ready To Get Started With Website Optimization?
Are you looking to improve the speed of your website? If so, you’re in luck! There are several ways to get started, and WP Gazelle is here to help. We offer website optimization services that can help you achieve your goals.
Our team has years of experience in the industry, and we’re ready to put our knowledge to work for you. We understand the importance of website speed along with all the other elements that contribute to a successful website.
We’re committed to providing premium support. No more waiting forever to get your questions answered and site issues taken care of.
Want to learn more about our WordPress services? We offer a risk-free trial, connect with us today to get started!
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