Imagine that you are a shopkeeper and are looking for a box of chocolate. One of the websites you encounter seems to take a long time to load each page, and it will soon be difficult to find what you want to find. So what will you do? You leave and go to another store.
This is a perfect example why e -commerce websites are so important. If the customer cannot navigate in your store and immediately find what they want (accurately in two seconds), they will shop elsewhere. This means that you lose
customers who buy your product. Who wants that?
Let’s see how fast your website is loaded and improves the speed of online stores.
Measurement site speed
First understand the current performance of your website. There are many tools to help you do this, including:
GTMETRIX. This provides performance scores, breaks down indicators such as \”full load\”, and provides detailed suggestions for speed improvement.
Pingdom website speed test. This has a simpler and more direct interface, as well as important indicators such as loading time and page size. You can also choose to test the position.
PageSpeed \u200b\u200binsight. This shows the score directly from Google, divided into mobile devices and desktop devices.
In order to get the most accurate results, please use a variety of tools for testing. This allows you to well understand the loading speed of the website and let you understand how optimization can shorten the loading time.
Reminder of fast e -commerce store
1. Start with high -quality host [123 ]
Your host provides a speed foundation for your entire website, so it is important to choose a host with performance. Find the following functions:
Server end cache
There are sufficient resources to meet your site needs, such as bandwidth and RAM
High -performance SSD drive
123] Updated software, such as PHP and MySQL
In many cases, if you use a shared trustees, thousands of websites will be piled on the same server to use the same resources. chooseThe hosting service provider restricted the number of sites on each server, or considers upgrading to VPS or dedicated plans so that you have your own server space.
I don’t know where to start? Check the host we recommend.
2. Select a fast and reliable theme
The more complicated the theme. The more code it installed on your website, the slower the loading speed of your website. If you use the theme of a plug -in or page builder, this is especially true.
Now, this is not to say that you should not use the \”heavy\” theme -you may need extra extra Function or design tools -but weighing the advantages and disadvantages is important. Many themes also allow you to close the unused features, which is a good way to balance site requirements and speed issues. How do you know if a theme is fast? Try to run its demonstration page through the speed tool we mentioned earlier, or read customer comments to understand the opinions of real users.
Storefront
Theme is a good starting point. It is simple and fast, at the same time as intuitive and flexible.
3. Limit the plug -in you use
Plug -in is one of the biggest advantages of WordPress because they provide unlimited flexibility. However, this does not mean that you should install all these. The plug -in can affect the speed through the following ways:
Send an additional HTTP request. Many plugins add additional JavaScript or CSS files to your site, thereby increasing the number of HTTP requests sent to your server, thereby slowing down your storage speed.
Add a database query. Many plug -in extract information from the database to display elements at the front end, which increases the server load.
Occupy hosting resources. The more plugins you have, the more server resources you use. Moreover, if you check the resources assigned by the hosting plan, your loading time will be affected.
But this is not only related to the number of plugins you installed -no correct or wrong number -but also related to quality. Select plug -in with multiple functions, check comments on speed information, ensure that they are updated regularly and installed options from the reliable source (such as WordPress.org or the official WooCommerce market).
If you want to know how specific plug -in affects your website, try to the P3 plug -in performance analysis. 4. Update WordPress, theme and plug -in
WordPress core, theme and plug -in update not only contain cool new features or security patch. In many cases, they actually increase your website speed by optimizing code.
Make sure to execute updates every time. Or, if you don’t want to check frequently, you can open the automatic update in WordPress settings.
5. Compress your picture
The image is some of the heaviest and most difficult files for server processing, so you want them to be as small as possible. However, the quality and size of the balance image are also important. After all, you don’t want to blur the product pictures! There are some good steps here:
Select the correct format. Unless your image has a transparent background, it is usually best to upload a smaller JPEG file.
Use only the size you need. If you have only 500 pixel width you want to fill, do not upload 2000 pixel wide images.
Run the image through the compression. The image compressor will remove unnecessary data and information in the picture, thereby reducing file size. Eww IMAGE Optimizer and SMUSH plug -in will automatically solve this problem for you. Or, if you use Mac, you may consider running your image through ImageOptim before uploading.
Read our posts on optimizing e -commerce images to get more details.
6. Consider the delayed loading picture Pages or a large number of pictures, you may need to consider enabled the picture delay loading. This function will automatically delay the loading of the image until the site visitors roll down to the position they appear on the page. This means that your customers do not have to sit there to wait for all your media to load before spending your content (or buy your product!). There are multiple tools available, including the free delay loading function of Jetpack, just click to use it to enable.
7. Install the cache plug -in
Every time someone visits your store, their browser must load all your website data: images, videos, JavaScript, CSS, etc. According to the size of your website,This may take a while! But when you enable the cache, their browser will save the copy of your site file so that when they return, the loading speed will be faster.
Some hosting service providers provide this feature at the server level, but you can also use WP Super Cache Plug -in like. 8. Set CDN Content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed server network around the world. It images, videos and other assets from your site, and provides services through its own network to reduce the pressure of your server.
Although this is a good solution for any store, it is particularly useful if you sell internationally. For example, if your server is located in New York and someone visits from India, your site is usually loaded from the New York server. But CDN loads your site from the server closest to each customer. This means that each visitor can get the best speed experience.
CDN may be difficult to set, especially when you are not familiar with them. But Jetpack provides an excellent option for images, videos, JavaScript, and CSS files. You only need to click on them to open them.
9. Prevent violence attack
When hackers use robots At the time, brute attacks occur. They can try thousands of user names and password combinations every minute! But wait -this sounds like a security issue, not a speed problem. Yes, it will definitely affect security, but when there are so many login attempts per minute, it will bring huge pressure to your server and significantly slow down. Fortunately, it is easy to prevent violence attacks. All you have to do is to enable the free violence attack protection function of Jetpack.
10. Update your PHP version and increase your memory limit
You want to upgrade the PHP version you are using (the programming language of WordPress), the reason is to update the topic with you want to update the topic The same reason is the same. Each update is faster than the last time, and it can improve your website performance.
Your host determines the PHP version you use. You can usually change it in the host control panel, but the specific step depends on your provider. orJust contact the customer to support and ask them to perform this for you.
You can find the lowest WordPress PHP requirements here. Please note that we recommend that you have a complete backup of your website before updating the PHP version and testing all the contents to ensure your normal work.
What about your memory restrictions now? Your website has a certain amount of memory allocated to it by your host service provider. However, according to your specific site, you may exceed this limit (such as at least 128 MB of Woocommerce). In many cases, you can add memory limit to the host control panel (see our guide), but if not, you can contact your hosting service provider at any time.
Don’t miss valuable sales
What you don’t want to do is to lose sales of those who are planning to buy your product. However, if your website is too slow to load, then this is a good possibility.
Just a few simple steps can significantly increase the speed of your online store. Don’t wait until it is too late -start today!
3. Limit the plug -in you use 
