The importance of WordPress site speed optimization in the time of COVID-19 crisis

Whether you like it or not, most of the world is in the lockdown mode due to the global pandemic. If you put aside the side effects, we are most likely spending our days close to TVs, tablets, laptops, and smartphones. Online shopping also became more popular, especially in countries with protective measures that include movement restrictions. This means that people expect to buy everything they need online since most of the shops are closed or have a long line of people waiting in front of them.

Of course, the demand for essential goods is rising, and new business opportunities are becoming more and more visible, even to those shop owners that didn’t pay much attention to their online presence. Getting a new website or optimizing WordPress site speed is not an easy task, and often requires a lot of planning, which is something most of the resellers don’t have right now. They need a fast, functional web site or online shop, and they need it for yesterday.

With more than 61,8% market share WordPress is the dominant CMS platform globally, and choosing the right CMS platform is essential for your business. Simplicity, ease of use, flexibility, security, upgradeability, these are all the things that are related to WordPress. It doesn’t matter if you are running an online publishing, webshop, or a small business, WordPress has it all. With an army of developers behind it, this platform is ever-evolving, with new functionalities and tools added every day.

So, with limited time at your disposal, let’s go through the most important things that you need to address if you want to have a successful online presence.

Table of contents

• Speed
• Fresh and updated
• Fast provider – a fast website
• Optimization is the key
• Speed up your database
• It’s the little things that add up to success

Speed

Like on your first date, nothing is more important than your first impression. It’s the same with websites. Once you click on a link or enter a URL, you want to get instant feedback – a functional website with the information you need at your disposal. With the evolution of the internet and its speed, the bar is set very high when it comes to speed and loading times.

If we look at the facts, almost 50% of users expect that the website is loaded in 2 seconds or less. On the other hand, more than 41% will abandon the website entirely if the loading speed takes 3 seconds or more. This means that speed is the prerogative to everything else, hence the first date comparison.

If speed is what we need, what can we do to improve our websites, and attract more visitors? Here are a couple of pieces of advice on what you can do, and how you can boost your website.

Fresh and updated

Presuming you already chose WordPress as your CMS, keep in mind that regular updates will keep your website at top of your game. One of the key focus points for the WordPress developers is the speed, so improvement and optimization of core software is something that you can always expect. This translates to themes and plugins that you use, so do not postpone your updates, implement them regularly and your website will have peak performance, which will reflect your speed and, consequently your visitors count.

Fast provider – a fast website

The hosting provider is an essential part of any website. Choose wisely and you will be grateful over time. You should pick a hosting plan that suits your needs, and a provider that offers flexibility, advanced security, good backup options, guarantees performance, with an option to grow as your needs grow. Hosting providers like Hostinger offer a lot of different options and flexible plans that can correspond to different needs of websites. Good performance, tight security, and flexibility can help you cope with a surge of visitors which is something you can expect in this global turmoil. Read more hosting review here!

Optimization is the key

With multimedia being the “heaviest” part of every website, optimization of this content is one of the key factors that can affect the speed and loading times of your website. Videos can be very tricky, so if you have the need to upload videos, avoid direct upload to your website and use WordPress built-in option for embedding videos. Websites like YouTube and Vimeo are made for video, and you should take all the advantages of their services, offloading your website in the process.

Images can be optimized with various available plugins that decrease image size with little to no impact on image quality. This way your servers will deliver your website much faster, resulting in reduced loading times, better SEO and overall user experience.

Caching is one of the smart tricks you can implement in order to further improve the speed of your website. As any cache memory out there, once you open a website this info is stored in the cache, and next time you visit a website that information is served instead of requesting it from the server. This is ideal for websites that don’t have a lot of changes on a daily basis and can offload servers significantly, which results in faster loading and improved speed.

Speed up your database

The database is the heart of your website, and with servers accessing it every now and then, the speed of databases is reflecting the speed of your website. Of course, there is an abundance of plugins that can help you clear the clutter, delete things that are not used, repair and optimize your database for you. With a fast and responsive database, you will have one more link in your chain which is working faster and further improving the website speed and performance.

It’s the little things that add up to success

Having a successful online business is a mix of different strategies that work in synergy ultimately delivering the right information/services to the visitors. Fast loading times and a fast website make the necessary first step that paves a path for your users. Have no doubt, by optimizing your website, you can drastically improve your speed and performance which will consequently increase your visitor count and boost your website, especially in these hard times.