Many small businesses have WordPress websites. There are a lot of great reasons to choose this platform, from the fact that it is inexpensive to all of the great themes offered. If there's one thing you don't love about your WordPress website, though, it is the fact that it often runs a bit slow. This isn't something to ignore! If your website is slow, people will get frustrated and leave. An analysis of data by Google shows us that 53% of people will leave if a webpage doesn't load within three seconds. But the average load time for sites is 19 seconds on a 3G connection and 14 seconds on a 4G connection. If your website is slow, your potential customers and clients will find a competitor with an easier to use and faster option. It is as simple as that!
How to Speed Up your WordPress Enabling GZIP Compression on Your Web Server
What can I do?
The only question that remains is what can be done about it? The easiest way to speed up your WordPress site is to eliminate all its unwanted resources. If you've already deleted old images that are no longer needed and worked hard to keep your website assets cleaned up you may be saying, "I've done that and it hasn't done enough!" If this is the case, you need a little more help. A second way to speed up website loading is to compress all its wanted resources. Don't worry, this is a lot easier than it may sound. Enabling GZIP compression on your web server is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to achieve that.
You see, all modern browsers, like Bing and Google, include support for GZIP compression by default. However, to serve the compressed resources to your users with no hiccups, you must configure your server properly.
How do I do that?
If you don’t have GZIP compression enabled on your web server, there are many ways to go about enabling it. The easiest way to enable GZIP compression on your WordPress site is by using a caching or performance optimization plugin. The exact method depends on which web server you’re using to host your website. For example, if you host your WordPress site on Apache web server, W3 Total Cache includes an option to enable GZIP compression under its Browser Cache settings panel. On the other hand, WP Rocket lets you add GZIP compression rules automatically. These plugins enable GZIP compression by adding Apache’s mod_deflate module to the .htaccess file.
"Okay, you lost me!" you're saying. If you're not sure where to go from here, know that we can help. This is what the experts at Data Driven Design work on every single day. We create custom, enterprise-quality websites that increase organizational efficiency and drive brand engagement. If your website is built, but a bit too slow, we can install and enable the right plugins to change that.
When your website is faster, people will take you more seriously. Your web sales will go up! Call us at 971-803-5350 or email [email protected] to get started working toward your goals, together.
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