WordPress Amazing CMS
In continuation to my previous blog on speeding up the website, I am presenting another case study of WordPress website guuhuu.com.
WordPress is an amazing CMS platform, but it can also be quite slow if not optimized correctly. In this guide, we will show you how to speed up WordPress, by sharing our web performance strategies and recommendations.
WordPress is having over 31.6% of the share of all website as of August 2018.
WebSite Speed Matters In 2018
Google announced back in 2010 that desktop site speed had an effect on your SERP (Search Engine Results Pages rank). Every day when we make any query in search engine, say Google, what we get is SERP. However, now in 2018, Google has also announced that mobile site speed has an effect on how you’ll rank. For getting to the top in search engine, content is most important. Good speed adds to bring the website at the top.
One of the most important tools to check speed test is Pingdom which I regularly use. Before starting the exercise of decreasing the load time, make an initial test on this platform and find out what is affecting the speed. With each change of plugins or any other change, keep testing the effect on speed. Find out if it has a positive or negative effect.
Choose Good Host
Let us discuss the CDN. Every time we access a website, the message is sent to the server of the host. The server sends back all contents. This takes time. If the server is replicated worldwide, then nearest server to the visitor will send the contents with shorter time. This is the basic concept of CDN (Content Delivery Network).
The technical definition of CDN is -A Content Delivery Network (or Content Distribution Network) is a system of strategically positioned servers around the globe. These servers maintain and accelerate your content. The main goals of a CDN are about speed, scalability, and high-availability. A request from a user will always be routed to the nearest point of presence (POP). CDN caches your content across global network, bringing it closer to visitors from every region.
Most of CDN services are at a cost. But I always use free resources. My host provides free service of Cloudflare at zero cost with some basic facilities and it works well. .But it is always good to choose a host with CDN services. Otherwise, you can higher CDN services.
Website Theme
Remember WordPress theme should complement the content of website. When I started my website “guuhuu.com” in this case study,I never new of this concept.I went for a free theme which was beautiful in Demo.I am still continuing with the same.The beauty of this theme (Ocean WP) is easy customization with elementor.I shed off what I never needed and made it light. WordPress themes comes with tons of customization options.Keep what is needed.
wpbeginner.com says theme should be simple without overly complicated.It should be able to serve contents to the visitor.What I feel, make beautiful website. At first visit,visitor looks on images more than the contents.Your visual content presentation is the clinching factor.It will hold an audience’s attention long enough for you to grab them with your actual content.Instead of telling a consumer about a product or blog let us show him/her the picture.While visitors are reading your content, they’re taking in the images, the typography, the styling, the Web design.
What I feel “BEAUTY OF WEBSITE & IMAGES AND TYPOGRAPHY MATTER A LOT AS AGAINST THE OLD SCHOOL OF ONLY CONTENTS”.
Advantage of Good Visual Theme
Advantage of Designer Website with More Visualization
1.SERP ranking-A good visualization of website/images increases the SERP ranking as visitor is attracted to click even if it is on lower rank in first page.
2.Bounce Rate-Bounce rate means how long on average visitors stay on and click further pages.Lower bounce rate means visitor do not bounce off,do not leave, your website immediately.Related good images attract the visitors and hence lowers the bounce rate.My bounce rate is 66% which is considered healthy.
3.Visuals & Shares-Eye catching unique visuals make one to share to others which means we get links.In my case I have made it attractive with dark shadows and attractive presentation of “About” and “Vision” in my website guuhuu.com.
4.Social Network-Facebook and Google+ have emphasized visuals in recent redesigns.Pinterest’s visual-based sharing system is already at top.It is 3rd most popular social network only on account of visual presentation.
I conclude, use CDN host and make the website attractive with Images relevant to the blog.