SPEED UP YOUR WEBSITE
Website Speed is Important.
Those first few seconds a user is on a site are the most important. If itβs loading slowly, the average user will simply leave to find another page. In fact, many will not even wait 3 seconds for a page to load. Nobody has time for a slow website.
We can help improve your websiteβs speed and increase your traffic. Read the tips below to see if you can diagnose your speed issue and see what services we have available to help you.
WHY DOES YOUR WEBSITE SPEED SLOW DOWN?
Sometimes, itβs your server and sometimes itβs the host. Other times, it could be the bittersweet reason of multiple users being logged on or youβre gaining too much traffic to your site. It could also be that your code isnβt as up to date as it should be.
Running a speed test report is the best way to cracking the case of the slower website. Be sure to follow their suggestions to improve your site speed.
Sometimes, the technical talk in these reports can be too complex to understand, so weβve got you covered. Here are some surefire techniques to try out to enhance your WordPress speed optimisation.
TIPS TO SPEED UP YOUR WORDPRESS SITE
β Utilise object, database, page, browser caching to optimise your site
β Clean up your SQL database and optimise it
β Resize, compress and optimise images
β Review your plugins and ensure theyβre running well
β Configure minification and page compression
β Do a speed audit to find any opportunities to speed up your website
β Review your hosting for performance issues
KEEP A CLEAN AND ORGANISED DATABASE
You know how you can sometimes get a notification on your phone or computer telling you to free up your disk space? The same can go for your database. Itβs constantly getting filled with different data and unnecessary storage and needs to be cleaned and swept through.
Using tools likeΒ WP-OptimizeΒ andΒ WP-Sweep, we can help clean and sort this database. Some of your databases can prove to be cluttered or unorganised, which will result in a slower website for your users.
YOUR WEB TECH SHOULD ALWAYS BE UP TO DATE
Weβll make sure all of the technology youβve downloaded and use on your site is constantly being updated. This includes PHP, HTML, plugins, and themes. Basically, anything thatβs being used to help your site run more efficiently will need to be updated.
Sometimes, if youβre using a certain type of host, it will check this constantly for you to let you know when any of these need to be uploaded.
Otherwise, youβll have to constantly check and make sure you have the latest versions of everything on your own.
A CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORK IS VITAL
You wouldnβt expect that in todayβs day and age, weβll still see the difficulty of communication between a website visitor and the website creatorβs computer. However, it is a problem. The farther away the user is from the creatorβs computer, the slower the data connection will be.
To solve this problem of distance, content delivery networks were created. It hosts your websiteβs files on different servers at the same time.
This way, the various locations will have a greater chance of reaching someone from far away, which makes download time quicker for users.Β Cloudflare,Β Amazon CloudFrontΒ andΒ MaxCDNΒ are all great options that can be used for a content delivery network.
COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES (WHILE KEEPING HIGH-QUALITY)
When you first land on a website, whatβs the first thing you notice? For me, itβs the images. They take up a majority of the page when compared to the content. Since theyβre bigger, they have a greater chance of slowing down your site. You need to focus on making them smaller so they donβt slow down your site.
The tricky part is making them smaller without messing with the quality of the image. This is where compressing your images comes into play. We will focus on compressing and optimising your images to help your website load faster. We suggestΒ SMUSH.
YOUR HOST AND SERVER SHOULD BE AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE
An effective host and server are both really important elements to have when building your site. This is an investment youβll want to make so try to extend your budget for something as important as this: itβs worth every penny.
Steer clear of hosting that is shared and try to instead find one that is managed. There are several managed WordPress hosts that are available and very user-friendly. They will normally consist of a WordPress-specific server that will handle all of the difficult parts of running a website β Leaving you to solely handle the basics like content and item placement on your site.
PAGE CACHING SHOULD ALWAYS BE ENABLED
When a user lands on your site, that specific page will have to generate that page for that specific user and find the necessary information to display it to them. Since this has to be completely redone every time a new user visits a page, it can be time-consuming for your website and can cause it to slow down overall.
We can help you combat this and make your site up to 5 times faster. Weβll enable page caching and make your website run efficiently.Β WP RocketΒ will have you covered.
ARE YOU USING THE LATEST WORDPRESS FEATURES?
Hereβs an interesting fact about WordPress themes and plugins: you can download as many extra features as you want, but it will never slow down your site. You can, however, slow down your site by using low-quality plugins and other software.
Be sure to research and double check the reliability of each plugin and technology you decide to use on your site to make sure itβs high in quality and doesnβt cause your site to lag. Your themes should also be high in quality and consist of themes that are strong and well-coded.
If these arenβt updated well enough, you can find yourself and your users experiencing a slow site or even worse, security risks. At Hatched Designs, weβll help you update your plugins and make sure everything is up to date.
SPEED UP YOUR WORDPRESS SITE WITH US TODAY
A strong website is vital to maintaining either your personal or businessβ brand. The best way to do this is to make sure your WordPress site is in the best shape possible.
If you are struggling with a lagging website and want to stop losing traffic, ourΒ WordPress Optimisation ServiceΒ is what you need. Not only can we save your traffic, but we can also protect your siteβs users.
