It is an understatement to say that page speed is more important than ever. The problem with all the posts and all the good intentions is that they are harming. To not sound too philosophical, what does it mean to improve page speed of WordPress website?
Luckily, this is not philosophy 101 and instead is a technical matter. You have to analyze the flaws of your website and fix them to resolve possible problems with page speed.
It is an analytical effort to understand how your website works. And then deliver an excellent user experience.
Approaching the Page Speed Issue
Before you do anything, you need a proper methodology to assess the problem. For example, if you are buying ready-made themes, you can expect issues. These themes, while aesthetically pleasing, lack the coding and development base to function.
If that is the case, then try getting another theme instead of fixing the existing one. While that sounds brash, you need the proper methodology.
That means that you need an elementary understanding of how websites work. And more than that, you need an idea of what you want them to do.
For example, let’s compare a simple website that sells a single service with an e-commerce shop. With the first website, you have a small website that you can edit in less time. With e-commerce shops, you need a complex UX and optimization of various pages. And all that plus proper technical SEO optimization.
The thing is that you have the same general guidelines for web development and SEO. And, these guidelines apply to both!
The difference is how you apply these guidelines and model them for your website. That is something impossible to learn through theory. Instead, you have to look at your case and work from that position.
WordPress Platform
First, you want to look at your platform. Usually, the elementary difference between websites is their platform. WordPress is one of the most popular platforms, and there are Shopify, Wix, and custom-made websites.
Custom-made websites often have specific coding and setup that engages these issues. However, with improper coding, they may encounter various problems.
The advantage of WordPress is that it is a light platform you can easily modify. And, you can add various plug-ins, themes, and features without much effort. Once you have an idea for the web design, you can set up a website in almost no time.
Additionally, you can optimize WordPress for page speed without too much effort. It is more simple to do it if you build the website from the ground up. So, if you want to build a website, go with WordPress.
Even when you want to build an e-commerce website, you can do it with the WordPress platform. Now that you can identify the base of the website, it is time to build a website from that.
Website Structure and Navigation
The structure of the website and navigation of the website is detrimental to page speed. For example, a website with a few pages is easy to optimize for page speed issues. With minuscule fixes on layout and code, you can get maximal website speed.
However, if you have a complex website with many pages, you need more work. For example, this is an entirely different issue if you have a website that heavily uses SEO. A website developer needs to know which pages are crucial for optimization.
Then, they can work on them and resolve technical SEO issues. Sometimes, they need to set redirects, de-index pages, and sometimes even delete them. All that requires a specific analysis to identify these issues and find the best way to fix them.
Another problem you may encounter is when you work with themes, both free and paid. If possible, skip-free themes. While they have the allure of being readily available, they can harm your website.
Even when you buy a paid theme, you are often unaware of the theme’s coding. Then, you are unaware of how code can harm your efforts to optimize page speed.
When it comes to website structure and navigation, you want to address:
- The architecture of the pages
- Layout of pages
- Redirections
- Broken pages
- Broken links
- Parallaxes
- Responsiveness
- Content on the page
- Size of media
It is possible to assess these issues with a tool analysis. The problem comes when you encounter errors that deal with code.
Coding Issues
The primary reason you need a web developer in your marketing teams is coding issues. Most marketers make the same mistake over and over again. They believe that you can pay a certain amount of money and have a website that fits your needs. That is far from the truth.
In practice, website development takes a lot of planning and effort to build. Similar to how a marketer plans each step of the strategy, so does the web developer. They have to think of the code and how to apply it to address a specific issue. For example, think about the frequent error you get from PageSpeed insights. It tells you to minify JavaScript and CSS code.
While that issue seems minuscule, it is rather vague. Because, as a professional without coding experience, how would you tackle the problem?
Again, here it is a matter of understanding the code and coding in general. Taking this issue one step further, you can say that it is a matter of web engineering.
It is a complete difference when you have an experienced web developer on your side from the start of the project. If the code the whole website from the ground up, they get to set all parameters. They can draw you a web design, and once you verify it, they can move to the actual development.
From that point on, they write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code to fit those needs. Thus, they can write a minimal amount of code while preserving website quality. With that approach, you reduce any possible error in the testing phase and have an excellent website.
Of course, the experience in the industry has fewer such cases. In reality, you get a website you need to fix. Then, you look at the code and sometimes have to write almost the entire code from scratch.
Even then, you can fix the page speed issues. However, there is an overlooked problem most users fail to solve.
Hosting
Hosting is an elementary part of any website. And it is also a part of owning a website that users overlook the most.
When you buy hosting, you decide on around 40% of overall website quality. While you can have excellent code and web design, it matters less with bad hosting. Hosting determines:
- The bandwidth of the website
- Number of users you can have
- Website load time
- Page load time
- General website resources
- General website build
- Website security
Therefore, you could say that choice of hosting determines the crucial aspects of any website. The problem with hosting selection is that you need to know what hosting you need. For that, you want to think about:
- Website architecture
- Marketing strategy
- Number of visitors per month
- The complexity of the website
- E-commerce options
- Website apps
Additionally, you want to think about hosting types. There is:
- Shared hosting
- Individual hosting
- VPN hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Server-specific hosting
Making these estimates count so much if you think long-term. Let’s say that you want to have an e-commerce website with a dozen online shoppers per month. Once you launch the website, there are no actual visitors. With proper planning and execution, the visitors come. Then, once they know about the website, it is unlikely to change the hosting.
Instead, you want to plan these things. And bring the best possible user experience.
Improve Page Speed of WordPress Website
There are two approaches to fixing page speed issues. The first, which is more common, is to tackle them as they come. The second, which is more beneficial, is to make an effort to prevent them.
It is possible to do so if you have a strategic mindset about web development. Or if you work with a web developer that has experience working with marketers.
The choice is yours. You can take on the problem as you go. Or, you can build a website that makes your business perform. Do the latter and grow your business.