WordPress is one of the internet’s leading web building platforms. When you consider the ease with which it allows customers to build their own websites, whether using templates or plugins, it’s not hard to see why this is. However, building a website isn’t all you need to do. You also need to optimize it.
Optimizing your site can increase its positioning in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), which increases its visibility and the likelihood of sales being made. This post’s intention is to help you with optimization, which it will do by offering six tips you can use to simplify the process.
Table of Contents
1. Hiring Professional Support
You don’t have to navigate the complexities of building your own website alone. There are agencies that can simplify building WordPress websites, as well as help with the optimization process. The main advantage of hiring support is that you will have a dedicated team of professionals working exclusively on your site, giving it their undivided attention. This means any problems present will be eliminated as soon as they are identified. If you are interested in hiring support, take your time and find the most experienced agency you can. An agency’s reviews will give you insight into the quality of their service, so read them before making a hiring decision.
2. Finding Reliable Hosting
A reliable host is very important. If your site’s host server is slow, it will perform poorly. Users of the internet have a low tolerance for slow websites today. This is due to the fact that they have lots of choices. No matter what service or product your business sells, there will be other people offering the same thing. A slow website is likely to deter visitors from becoming customers, and could push them into the hands of rival business owners. Take your time and find the most reliable host you can, so your site doesn’t put people off.
3. Picking a Basic Theme
Your website’s appearance is important. If you cannot afford the help of a support agency however, your best bet is to pick a basic theme. A basic theme isn’t likely to impede site performance. There are many themes available on WordPress, from free to paid ones.
Bear in mind that by selecting a basic theme, you devalue your business. Visitors will immediately recognize that your site is using a simple theme, which could damage your reputation. However, notwithstanding potential harm to your reputation, a basic theme is acceptable if you have no means of paying for professional support, nor experience in site building.
4. Optimizing Site Images
You could argue that optimizing site images is one of the best things you can do if you want your website to perform well. An unoptimized image can cause a page to load very slowly and as mentioned above, internet users expect websites to respond quickly. The most effective way of optimizing images on your website is to use a plugin to compress them. Plugins for image optimization are widely available. Some of them are even free, so if you are on a budget, free plugins are a great option.
5. Disabling Unused Plugins
The use of plugins is an essential part of WordPress optimization. Likewise, disabling unused plugins is an essential part of the optimization process. If your website has any outdated or unused plugins on it, take action and remove them immediately. The sooner you do, the sooner you can improve your site’s performance. One of the best things about hiring an agency is that they will do all of this for you.
There’s very little you will actually have to do yourself if you hire support. It is important to find the best agency you can, which you can do by conducting a basic internet search, then reading reviews of the agencies that show up. The reason reviews are helpful is because they give you a glimpse into the experiences of customers who have done business with them in the past.
6. Using Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is an extremely effective way of improving your site’s performance. If the concept is not one you have heard of before, it involves setting images and videos so that they only load when they come into view. Lazy loading can massively improve page speeds, saving you the hassle of losing site visitors due to poor performance. Lazy loading can compliment any existing image optimization strategies you have been using, adding serious speed to your site.
Running a WordPress website can be difficult, especially when you add optimization to your list of chores. Hopefully the guidance given here has given some insight into how to optimize your WordPress site.
