How to Fully Optimize a WordPress Website
If you’re reading this, I assume you have a working knowledge of WordPress and how to optimize a website within the platform. You’re probably also aware of the myriad of free tools that can be used to analyze and improve your site’s performance.
But, if you’re looking to truly optimize a WordPress website, there are a few advanced techniques that can greatly enhance your efforts. Let’s dive into how to fully optimize a wordpress website.
CMS vs Non-CMS Websites
When we think about websites, the first thing that probably comes to mind is content management system (CMS). You’ll often find CMS-based websites in the form of blogs or news websites that allow users to easily post new content. WordPress itself is a popular CMS, as is Drupal, Joomla, and others.
If your website is built on a non-CMS platform such as HTML or E-Bay’s X-Shop, then you’ll have to dive into some serious HTML and CSS optimization to make it perform well. You’ll also have to consider the role of search engine optimization (SEO) if you want to have your website ranked highly in search engine results.
The Importance Of Mobile Friendliness
It’s quite obvious that with the rise of mobile devices and the evolution of mobile web design, the importance of mobile friendliness has increased. After all, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, then potential visitors may never reach your content. Even if they discover your site through a search engine, they may never reach the content once they arrive because the site isn’t mobile-friendly.
Fortunately, making your site mobile-friendly is as simple as ensuring that all of its components are optimized for mobile devices. This could mean that you need to adjust the type of content that you display on mobile devices and ensure that there are no broken links or images that are excessively large.
As much as possible, you want to avoid having a negative impact on a user’s experience when they’re on the go. If you’re not aware of how detrimental poor mobile performance can be, then you might assume that a user has bad connection and the website is taking a long time to load. However, in the event of a mobile network outage or poor connection, you don’t want to frustrate or anger your user. A good user experience on mobile devices means that you’re providing the best experience for your users, which in turn drives more traffic to your site.
The Evolution Of Website Design
With each new generation, the need for website redesign becomes less important. Designers have learned to expect the unexpected and to adapt accordingly. While there are still cases where a complete rebuild is necessary, oftentimes it’s just a matter of adjusting the templates used to build the site and fixing any broken links. As a result, we’re seeing a trend towards minimalistic design.
When it comes to mobile friendliness, there’s a common misconception that a simpler design translates to a mobile-friendly design. While a simple design might not be overly complex, it can be extremely difficult to make a site simple and streamlined when you have a lot of content and elements moving around on a page. Keeping track of where you are in relation to the other content on the page can be a mental burden when juggling the complexity of mobile design. If you really want to make your site mobile-friendly, a good place to start would be by simplifying the design and removing any distracting elements. Once you’ve removed the clutter, you can start to add in more elements, such as additional fonts or images to further unify the design.
It’s also important to keep in mind that not all simple designs are created equal. Too often, we think that more is better when it comes to aesthetics. While it’s true that a simple design can look quite appealing, having too many elements on a page can make it harder for users to find what they’re looking for. If you really want to make your site simple and appealing, it would be wise to start by removing things that are not essential to the functionality of the site. While it might seem counterintuitive, sometimes less is more when it comes to design.
Why Is Website Performance Important?
It’s quite obvious that a fast-loading, responsive website is of paramount importance. If your site takes a while to load on mobile devices, then it will make your users feel unimportant and even a little bit dissatisfied with your service. Having a slow-loading website can also result in a poor user experience and potentially lost sales. If you really want to see your website perform at its best, you need to make sure that all of its components are working together as efficiently as possible. This means ensuring that all external links are working and displaying the content that they’re supposed to. This includes not only links within the website, but also links to and from other websites, blogs, social media, etc.
If you want to be able to measure the performance of your website, then you’ll need to look into the loading time of various components. If you discover that a certain element is taking a lot longer to load than you’d expect, then you’ll need to look into why this is the case and whether or not there’s a way that you can fix it. In many cases, there’s a simple solution that can be implemented. If this is the case, then it’s definitely worth the effort.
Analyzing Website Performance
While it’s important to make your website as fast as possible, it’s also important to remember that speed is relative. Every site is going to load a little bit differently, depending on the number of visitors, the amount of content, and a variety of other factors. If you really want to analyze the performance of your website, then you’ll need to look into a variety of metrics, including the speed at which various components are loading. If you aren’t already doing so, then it would be wise to set up Google analytics so that you can monitor the performance of your site.
If you discover that some elements are loading much slower than others, then you’ll need to look into why this is the case and whether or not there’s a way that you can fix it. In many cases, there’s a simple solution that can be implemented. If this is the case, then it’s definitely worth the effort.
Making A WordPress Website More Efficient
In addition to speeding up the loading time of your website, it’s also important to make it more efficient. While there’s a lot that goes into fully optimizing a website, you can start by making sure that all the underlying code is clean. This means removing all the junk that comes with the WordPress install and customizing it to your needs. If you run a WordPress-based e-commerce store, then you’ll want to make sure that all the templates and coding are up to date with the most up-to-date WordPress standards. This will make a HUGE difference in the performance of your site.
One of the most important aspects of optimizing a WordPress website is ensuring that all the content is linked correctly. If you have a lot of content that you want to make available to your users, then you’ll want to make sure that all the pages are linked correctly to the content that they’re supposed to represent. While this might seem like a daunting task, you can use a tool like Link Checker to make sure that all the links on your site are working.
As much as possible, you want to avoid having a negative impact on a user’s experience when they’re on the go. If you don’t adjust, then your site could perform poorly, resulting in frustrating UX and lost sales.
If you’re interested in making your website more efficient, then you should consider what would happen if there were an outage. If you have a site that relies heavily on external links, then you’ll have to make sure that all of these links are functioning. If you don’t, then your site could become unusable, resulting in lost sales and a dissatisfied customer. The worst case scenario is that your site could be down for an entire day, resulting in a lot of lost sales and a poor user experience.
As much as possible, you want to avoid having a negative impact on a user’s experience when they’re on the go. If you don’t adjust, then your site could perform poorly, resulting in frustrating UX and lost sales.