Many factors make a great website, both in terms of design and arrangement, and one of the biggest factors is speed. Nobody, including Google, likes a slow website. 40 % of users will leave your site if it takes too long to load.

Perhaps worse than that is the fact that about 80% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with the performance of your site are less likely to buy from you again.

Why Does Your Ranking Suck?

You’ve heard of Google algorithms, right? This is the process that Google uses to rate websites. And speed is included in that equation. Here’s the thing, you’ve created a stunning WordPress website that is full of great content and good keywords, but your ranking is poor. Why? Despite being a great platform for your website, WordPress has a weakness: speed. But before you desperately raise your hands, there is a solution. There are several ways you can speed things up so you not only have a great looking website but one that works efficiently as well.

Avoid Cheap Web Hosting

Believe it or not, the main cause of WordPress slowness is also the easiest to fix. Accommodation. Unfortunately, many people are drawn to cheap web hosting services, not realizing that it will likely cost them more in the long run. Cheap hosting usually means shared hosting which will lead to extremely slow speeds, frequent crashes, and even security issues. I suggest switching to a new web hosting provider, which has a four-time uptime guarantee. 99.9% - it’s not that expensive.

Another reason your WordPress site is so slow is that your images are too large. Most web development services will suggest compressing your images, so they load faster, without compromising size or quality.

Ask An Expert

If you’ve chosen WordPress because you’re a blogger, but are now finding it’s frustratingly slow, it could be that you need a content delivery network or CDN. Ahy Consulting’s web development experts use CDNs to keep all static files on your site so they can be downloaded very quickly.

This really should be part of your website from the start. But that doesn’t mean you should load your website with every plugin on the market! Another secret to owning a fast and awesome WordPress site is the “framework” you choose. Remember, the more you load, the slower it will be. So avoid the temptation to add all the bells and whistles!

That being said, however, one plugin that I would recommend to speed up your site is a caching plugin. Caching works by allowing some parts of your website to load once, instead of every time someone visits your site. This is good if a user visits multiple pages on your website.

These are just a few of the ways you can speed up your WordPress website. If you are serious about improving the performance of your site, I highly recommend that you bring in the professional website development professionals in AhyConsulting.

Feel free to reach out to me if you need help with what is right for you, using this link.

Cheers!