The Need for Speed

Of all the critical factors of your WordPress website, speed and responsiveness is perhaps the most important one that you can impact through industry best practises and regular maintenance. Google is very public about how important speed is to it’s ranking algorithm and there are many reports and studies relating to how speed impacts revenue, churn and customer retention.

Based on a Radware report, the cost of speed (or lack thereof) is massive.

1. 51% of online shoppers in the US say that site slowness is the top reason they’d abandon a purchase.
2. A 2-second delay in load time during a transaction results in abandonment rates of up to 87%. This is significantly higher than the average abandonment rate of 70%.
3. 18% of shoppers will abandon their cart if pages are too slow. The total cost of abandoned shopping carts for online retailers has been estimated at more than $18 billion per year.
4. 46% of online shoppers cite checkout speed as the number one factor that determines whether or not they will return to a site.
5. 85% of mobile users expect pages to load as fast or faster than they load on the desktop.

So how do you fix and/or improve the speed of your site?

Luckily there are a number of things you can do to optimize and accelerate your website’s responsiveness.

1. Optimization for mobility is essential on a number of fronts. With Google’s impending change in ranking based on mobile rather than desktop it is mandatory your website is designed for mobile-first.
2. Maintenance and upkeep of plug-ins, images and themes ensures your environment is working optimally
3. The utilization of a WordPress approved Content Delivery Network (CDN).

The most significant investment that can impact WordPress site speed is to partner with a WordPress hosting Solution Provider. Their infrastructure and environment encompass a number of products and services designed to optimize readability and reduce latency.

• Solid State Drive (SSD) storage is the fastest way to present content and store images and themes.
• Website Monitoring is essential for 24/7 e-commerce sites. Ensuring that there are no interruptions in service and velocity of responses are maintained. the technical environment is up to date and running optimally
• Infrastructure Optimization and Monitoring to ensure the technical environment is up to date and running optimally.
• Industry expertise is available for quick effective issue resolution and to be up to date on the latest industry trends and solutions.

Search3w has over a decade of experience in designing, implementing and supporting high performing, high transaction WordPress websites. If you are looking to take your website to the next level and want the peace of mind of certified industry experts maintaining your environment book some time with us to discuss what we can accomplish together.