eCommerce Website Design

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How to speed up a WordPress, eCommerce website

When it comes to the converting website trafiic, your websites speed is a vital piece of the jigsaw. Online buyers these days, expect the page to load within a second. Do you have a WooCommerce website which is slow to respond to user? Slow page load speeds are not vital for eCommerce sites and you may be losing potential customers if you do not rectify this. Google factors site speed into their algorithm when ranking websites resulting in fewer buyers visiting the site and therefore fewer sales.

Here are some pointers:

Use a cache plugin
You should consider deactivating plugins, themes, WordPress revisions or even javascript code. If you don’t need them, just delete them to prevent further access which makes your website slower. One such tip is to switch the WordPress revision function off. Go to wp-config.php in your WordPress folder and add the following line:

define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’,FALSE);

You can use a great cache plugin. The W3 Total cache is being used by most WordPress website designers, this gives a 10 times improvement in overall site performance when configured properly.

Optimising Database Tables
You can optimise your database table manually or using a plugin. This will help free up space and keep your database running smoothly. WP-Optimise plugin lets you remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue, un-approved comments and items in the trash. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to clean your database tables. If you face some issues with this try other options to help clean up your WordPress database.

Theme and code
A little error in the theme doesn’t shut the website down completely but makes it run a little slower. W3 validation is extremely useful in some cases. It digs deeper in your website and points out any errors in any line of the code. This allows you to find out if the theme is causing the website to slow down or other factors in the website code.

Reduce file sizes
You should reduce file sizes where possible. This is crucial for slow connections or when your customers browse on a mobile device, there are plugins available to help you decrease the file sizes and improve the overall performance.

Move to another host
Sometimes your hosting provider can be the cause of slow loading websites. Check with them to review all packages in order to make an informed decision or consider moving to another hosting provider.