Over the years WordPress has been one of the most popular Content Management Software (CMS) and a website builder. Having a WordPress website will be an ideal tool for entrepreneurs and companies who want to showcase their products and services to potential clients. It is advantageous because the code behind WordPress is very clean and simple, making it easy for search engines to read and index a site’s content.
Research has shown that Google and other search engines are now considering page speed as one of the performance metrics when displaying search results. Meaning, having a slow website will have your visitors clicking the back button before your site even loads. And to avoid losing potential audiences, you need to optimise your WordPress website for it to load faster and to appear more prominently in search results.
Since the launching of WordPress in 2003, it has had quite a remarkable growth. Looking into statistics over 40% of websites run on WordPress with more than 500 new sites being created daily and over 7 million new blog posts uploaded every month. With this, you’ll realise that the market is competitive and every single business wants to be seen on the first page of the search engine. So to top up your game, you need to optimise your WordPress website with more revolutionary designs.
Why Use WordPress Optimisation?
Your business needs WordPress optimisation because it makes your website faster and more easily discoverable. It is the process of enhancing, customising, and tweaking the WordPress setup to improve performance. So, if you have a WordPress site that is not producing the results you desire or want to build a new site using a WordPress theme, here are some best practices to consider.
Have the Right Specification
Just like any other software, WordPress has specific requirements that help its smooth running in terms of utilities and hardware. Some of the recommended hardware are 1GB+ disk space, Apache/ Nginx web server, MySQL version 5.0.15 database, a RAM of 512MB+, PHP version 7.3 and above, a mod_rewrite apache module, and HTTPS support. To avoid the threat of having a slow-running website, you can opt for WordPress hosting, as it already takes care of the system requirement and specifications.
When a WordPress website is not running on its ideal specifications there is a high threat of making your site run slower. Whenever an audience lands on your web page, their browser sends an HTTP request to your webserver to load the page. This means that every image, video, script, and stylesheet has its own request, and the more requests needed to load the page, the longer it takes to load. A better way to resolve this is to remove unnecessary images and content, also reduce the number of components by combining similar things into a single file.
Manage Plugins
With WordPress, your business can extend the functionality of its Site with plugins. It makes it easier to add an event calendar, video gallery, Facebook fan box, Twitter feed, and more, most of which are free or offered at very reasonable prices. Ensure to use only the plugins you want and give your plugins a checkup because many unused plugins may add Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or Javascript that you may not need. Do not leave old or unused plugins in your database, delete them to improve WordPress performance. You can use the Caching plugin to reduce the overhead processing time whenever someone visits your page and speeds up your site. These plugins are smart enough to refresh the caching copy when the page is updated.
Updating WordPress Website
Apply WordPress updates that are in line with the latest version. These software updates include speed tweaks in addition to security improvement which means it needs to be updated frequently. Also, update WordPress security plugins for they are the driving force for speed and security vulnerability.
Optimisation of Database
Implementing the right database optimisation strategy helps in reducing database system response time. These databases provide you with information stored with a hierarchical and related structure, that allows your business to extract the content and arrange it easily. To practice safe database optimisation, you need to avoid temporary tables and coding loops. Avoiding complicated coding loops is required to prevent stalling the entire sequence. Avoid unused tables, and prepare proper indexing. A good index among tables is essential for relational searches to work correctly, and without any indexing, the process will be prolonged, meanwhile indexing everything will render the insert and update triggers ineffective
Make your WordPress website Simple and Compelling
Implementing the best website designs can improve your website’s visibility, impact, functionality, and mobile readiness. Choose real, compelling, and simple colours that work best with your brand. A great colour palette gives more impact to your website and draws the visitor’s eye to the content you want them to see first. This means you have to set the tone for your visitors and highlight the most important parts of your business online.
The custom fonts and typography need to be readable, select the best from the variety of font plugins to use with your WordPress site. And also, using quality images is so vital for your brand. Ensure to use the latest and highest quality photos, these photos should complement your content and communicate the right idea with just a glance.
Choose a Quality Hosting Plan
A poor-quality hosting plan can effectively nullify all other speed-enhancement efforts. Even if you optimise your site for speed, it won’t make much difference if your server is slow or your plan is inadequate. So choosing the right hosting plan is the vital choice you’ll need to make for your website. This is because when a user accesses your site, your host’s server will determine how quickly information is passed to them and some servers are simply slow. This means your business site can not be faster than the server permits.
For this reason, you must pick a hosting provider and plan that suit your requirements. So if you’re looking forward to having a customised WordPress website design, or trying to improve your current website, Xanda Ltd is eager to work with you. Get in touch with us today for more information.