WordPress Optimization

Q: How to test your WordPress site's speed and loading time?

With tools such as Google's PageSpeed, which scores the site from 0 to 100, Lighthouse, available as a Chrome extension, and GTmetrix. The reports point out what to improve, but use technical language.

Q: Which WordPress themes can have their speed optimized?

MW Online optimizes the speed of WordPress sites with any theme.

Q: How long does a WordPress speed review and optimization take?

Two to ten days, depending on the amount of data, pages and integrations on the site.

Q: Does the performance improvement work on desktop and mobile?

Yes, with an emphasis on mobile, which accounts for more than 70% of visits for most MW Online clients.

Home

/

WordPress Optimization

Speeding up WordPress websites

How to speed up WordPress websites is a common question. Speed problems are a major obstacle for anyone seeking high performance online. Most users tend to leave a page if the site is slow, and almost 80% of users won’t buy from sites that take too long to open, according to Profissional de E-commerce.

Why speed up your WordPress website?

Everyone wants their site to be as fast as possible while keeping above-average quality. In practice, however, few people know why these changes affect their company’s online results so much. MW Online lists here some relevant reasons to improve your site’s speed and what it means in practice for your users:

User experience

Today more than ever, companies promoting themselves online aim to offer the best experience when users visit. Who hasn’t clicked to learn more about a product and given up because the site took too long to open? It happens all the time, and user experience matters a lot when capturing a form lead, getting a click on the contact button or closing the sale of your product or service.

It’s like arriving at a restaurant and waiting too long to be served: no matter how good the food is, by the time it reaches your table you’re already annoyed and have thought about leaving. Now imagine an online environment where, with one click, you can leave and walk into a competitor’s restaurant in seconds. Your site’s speed is directly tied to the experience your users will have.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google rankings

These terms are well known to developers and people who work in digital, but they can seem daunting to anyone building a website or improving an existing one. SEO is simply the set of strategies to improve the position of your site or pages in search engines, including Google. In other words, working on your site’s SEO improves your position on Google!

Speed is a very important factor among the strategies to get closer to the top of search results. If your site takes a long time to load its pages, search engines penalize it and it appears in lower positions. Strategies that make your site use less data and choosing reliable hosting are also key to improving your ranking.

How to test your WordPress site's speed and loading time?

There are several ways to analyze your site’s speed and performance. MW Online lists some tools you can use:

PageSpeed

Google’s own measurement tool, which scores your site’s speed from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more relevant your site is to search engines and, potentially, the better your position.

Getting the analysis is simple: open the tool, enter your URL and click analyze! Besides your score, it also tells you why, if you get low marks.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse can be opened as a Google Chrome extension or as a command-line tool, and it lets you audit and improve the quality of web apps. MW Online’s tip: if you want to run this check yourself, use the extension, because its interface is more intuitive and the reports are easier to read.

After downloading and installing the extension, enter the URL you want analyzed and, after a few quick tests, you’ll get an improvement report.

GTmetrix

A tool built to quickly test the performance and loading time of your site’s pages. Its report should be used to make improvements and make your site faster.

To use it, go to the site, enter your site’s URL and, most importantly, enter the right analysis parameters.

Although these tools are easy to access and their reports simple to obtain, and they detail the improvements to make, the language they use is technical and often hard to understand. So if you got a report and need help understanding how to improve, or to actually make the changes on your site, count on MW Online’s Website Performance team.

Which WordPress themes can have their speed optimized?

MW Online specializes in building, hosting and improving websites on the WordPress platform. That means we can optimize and improve your site’s speed with any theme.

If you don’t have a WordPress site yet, learn here (WordPress security) why the platform is secure and the benefits of migrating your site to it.

How long does a WordPress speed review and optimization take?

If you choose to optimize the performance of a site already built on WordPress, MW Online will handle the whole process and deliver the fully optimized site in two to ten days. The timeline depends on the amount of data, pages, tabs and integrations on your site.

Does the performance improvement work on desktop and mobile?

Yes! MW Online’s performance optimization covers both devices, with an emphasis on improving your WordPress site’s speed on phones, since mobile accounts for more than 70% of annual visits for most of the company’s clients.

MW Online specializes in WordPress and can help your company get better results with a range of solutions. Interested in our service? Get in touch, fill out the form and we’ll send you a no-obligation quote.

Want to Start a Project?

Turn your idea into reality with our specialized team.