In the shark-infested waters of today’s online marketplace, a WordPress-based website can’t be left treading water. And in order to keep moving, Website speed is absolutely essential.
Why is Speed Important on the WordPress Platform?
According to a recent Microsoft study, the average attention span of a human fell by a third. EEGs measured human attention at a mere 12 seconds in 2000, but it dropped to 8 seconds by 2015. Given the state of the modern media landscape, it is likely to be even lower today.
The difference between success and failure can be measured in seconds. A StrangeLoop case study of major sites such as Amazon and Google found that a single second delay in page load time can cause a 7 percent loss in conversions, 11 percent fewer page views, and a 16 percent decrease in customer satisfaction.
Check Your WordPress Website Speed
Find out if your website performance is up to snuff by using YSlow or other page speed testing software that can analyze your load times and identify problem areas. By tracking your Yslow speed score, you can reduce the page loading times dramatically and boost the overall quality of the user experience.
Ensure That Your Website Is Running at Top Speed
Optimize Images – One of the most common problems that affect website speed. Pictures should be compressed to significantly reduce their overall file sizes. Smaller file sizes mean faster performance!
Update WordPress Core – Like any software program, WordPress must be regularly updated in order to maximize performance.
Update Plugins – Poorly coded plugins are like molasses to a website, gunking it up and bringing page loading to an absolute crawl.