Top Ways to Optimize Speed and Conversion Rates of Your WordPress Site

Optimize Speed

Last updated - July 8, 2021

The Content Management System WordPress (WP) was created in 2003. According to whoishostingthis.com, as of 2020 over 35% of the websites in the world are powered by this giant of a CMS. It’s even accessible in more than 100 languages. These are phenomenal statistics! 

Added to this, WordPress is still developing. There are new, advanced features and versions that are frequently released, and though they might be difficult to understand at first, you should make the most of them to boost your website in various ways. 

If you’re an excellent wordsmith seeking to equip yourself with the savviest WordPress skills, these pieces of advice will act as a guide when it comes to optimizing the speed and conversions of your WordPress website.

Why is Optimizing the Speed of Your WordPress Site Important?

Optimizing the speed of your WordPress website is highly recommended for a number of reasons and can be achieved in many ways. 

Let’s start with the reasons. You might already know that pages with slow load times can reduce the amount of traffic to your site and increase your bounce rate. Both of these facts mean fewer visitors and a lower SERP ranking on Google, which is bad news.

From the moment someone accesses your page, your website needs to dazzle the visitor and encourage them to remain there. If your WordPress site hasn’t been optimized for speed, you are practically pushing people away from your valuable content at the very start.

As for the ways to achieve speed optimization, this can be taken care of with a number of different strategies. From making use of a content delivery network, to using various plugins you can ensure that the speed of your WordPress site is the best it can be.

How Can Content Delivery Networks Boost the Speed of WordPress?

Content delivery networks (CDNs) function by making use of servers to distribute content rapidly around the world. They are incredibly useful when your visitors are based a large distance away from you geographically. Cloudflare is one such example of a CDN, which also prevents malicious attacks.

A CDN like Cloudflare can be connected to a WordPress website. This can be done by installing a plugin, which has the advantage of enabling you to configure settings from your dashboard on WordPress. But to use it, you’ll first need to sign up to Cloudflare.

One of the great aspects of a good CDN in terms of boosting the speed of WordPress is that they include the option of code shrinking or minification.

Code shrinking reduces file sizes and removes the amount of redundant data or code, which in turn aids the loading speed of your content. What this all means is that once you have set up your content delivery network, visitors from other parts of the globe will quickly and easily be able to access your WordPress content. 

Let’s move on to plugins.

How Do Plugins Help with Boosting the Speed of Your WordPress Site?

There are also a range of speed optimization plugins that can help with increasing the speed of your WordPress site. Minifying and Caching plugins are some examples of these.

The amount of space that files take up can decrease the load speed of your WP website, which is exactly where a minifying plugin can come in handy. Don’t make the mistake of failing to compress your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files when it comes to optimizing your site.

One example of a minifying plugin is WP Super Minify, which is free and focuses on reducing the size of your various JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files.

In terms of caching, opt to use one of the top caching plugins such as WP Rocket, which function by reducing the amount of information that travels between the server, the WP database and the browser of the visitor.

Advanced features and great support sets apart WP Rocket from the rest of the caching plugins.

By storing a static version of your WP website, caching plugins eliminate the need to reload the webpages if a visitor accesses your site more than once. It is a great feature to make use of because, in terms of optimization, you are drastically reducing the load time as well as the bounce rate. This can increase your conversion rates.

What Are Conversions and Why Do They Matter?

Conversions are essentially actions that are completed on your website by visitors – actions that are usually positive for your business such as having your visitors share your content among friends, or requesting to know more about your services. Your WP site needs conversions and they are highly important.

It’s important to have an optimized conversion rate for various reasons. Your aim, after all, is to transform a visitor to your WP site into a potential customer that pays for your service. Whether you are selling a product or a service, a high conversion rate is a positive thing.

How Does Optimizing Speed Link to Conversion Optimization?

A high conversion rate is intertwined with speed optimization and it has been found that a higher conversion rate is normally linked with a fast load speed. If your WordPress site loads quickly, you are likely to have a better conversion rate.

What this therefore means is that your visitors are likely to carry out a task or action on your webpage when the load speed is high. They are encouraged to stay on your page and your dwell time is increased.

How Else Can You Optimize Conversion Rates?

Aside from increasing the speed of your page, conversion rates can be optimized in various other ways. From making use of certain plugins to assist your email marketing needs, to monitoring the user experience (UX), you can track exactly what works and what might need tweaking a little when it comes to optimizing your conversion rates.

Let’s focus on the email marketing plugins for a second.

In terms of some WordPress plugins, they can be used in conjunction with email marketing in different ways and they can help to reduce the complex process of sending emails and newsletters to your consumers. You can instantly take control of your email marketing requirements using plugins like MailChimp.

YITH Mailchimp plugin is a great option to integrate your online store with your Mailchimp account.

Using email marketing normally means that your previous consumers are likely to return to your eCommerce site to use your services or purchase your products again, so using email marketing plugins facilitates repeat business and increases your conversion rates.

How Does the User Experience Influence Conversion Rates?

The UX, as mentioned, is another important element that influences your conversion rates, and there are many different factors that should be taken into consideration when optimizing the UX to increase CRO.

The UX should make navigating your WordPress site as simple and straight forward as possible. If your user experience is poor, your conversion rate is likely to be poor as well, so ensure that your WordPress design is not to complex. 

Try to strategically place your calls to action to encourage your users to interact with your content – to share or comment on your WordPress site.

You should also ensure that your content is easy to read. This means using a sufficient font size and customizing your content to ensure that it is legible and keeps your audience’s attention. It’s common knowledge that many visitors skim read content, so make it easier for them to engage with your website to increase your conversion rates.

Conclusion

With the many advanced features of WordPress, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by this huge content management system. But optimizing your speed and conversion rates is crucial to your business and by following some of these steps, you’ll soon notice the performance of your WordPress site increase.

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