Website speed is one of the most important factors for improving visitor engagement, reducing bounce rates, boost search rank, and increasing sales conversions. If your WordPress website is running slow, the first places to look is your themes, plugins, and images. However, many times, these aspects of your website are already fully optimized. So, what is slowing your website?
Website design, marketing, and search engine experts generally agree that the ideal website will download, and be fully viewable for the visitor, within 3 seconds. How many times has a slow website caused you to become aggravated? Each additional second of load time increases the chance that a user will return to search, looking for a better result. Still, there are things you can do to speed your WordPress website.
Increase Speed with a Security Firewall
Malicious bots are one of the biggest culprits causing a WordPress website to slow down. Some bots are attempting to hack your site, others are attempting to post spam comments, and still others are attempting to scrape your website’s content. Regardless, these bots often hit your website in rapid fire succession, slowing your website or even causing the infamous “Error Establishing a Database Connection” message.
A Security Firewall will block hacking attempts from bad actors based on bot behavior, IP addresses, and other signals. Additionally, even when there is no ill intent, some bots are aggressive. A security firewall with throttle these bots, limiting their access to your WordPress website.
Increase Speed with a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Another method for increasing your website’s speed is making use of a content delivery network, also known as a CDN. The internet works much like an interstate highway system. If your visitor is in New York or California, and your business website is hosted in Florida, the website can appear slow based on overall internet traffic and how the user is being routed to your site.
A content delivery network essentially works by keeping a fresh copy of your website, whole or in part, on multiple servers across the world. When a visitor clicks on your link, the CDN will provide them with a version of your website from the server closest to them. The result is the user travels a shorter, more direct route to your website, potentially causing a drastically faster website.
What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like more information on speeding up your WordPress website, or on a related topic, please contact us..
