Digital Marketing forms an essential part of your business in today’s day and age, if you are not promoting your business online you are depriving yourself of reaching out to a wider audience that may eventually become your customers. Whilst social media is beneficial to your business, having an optimized, updated website is essential.
In the digital age, a website is a very important marketing asset and consumers believe that companies with a website are more professional rather than those with simply a social media presence, having a website means that you are present at the same place as your potential customers and investing in SEO means that when your customer searches for a product or service your website appears on top of the search engine.
According to the Digital Consumer Study, it has been reported that almost 63% of customers use the companies website in order to engage in a deal, this is why it is essential that you have an optimized, upgraded website.
It is important that your website is search engine optimized (SEO), SEO is a technical process that aims to ensure that your website appears on the first page of Google search, it uses an algorithm to improve the visibility of your website and thus increase audience, via SEO you can increase organic audience to your website and later convert these leads into sales.
One weakness that can really affect the traffic to your website is if you have a website which is slow, apparently website visitors will only give you 10 seconds before they click the cross button and find another website to purchase from if they find that your website is taking too long to load. Even Google requires that your website meets a certain speed in order for it to appear on the first page of the search engine, this means that if your website is too slow it will not be considered search engine optimized.
No need to worry though if your website is slow there are ways you can speed it up and ensure you are benefiting from the rewards that SEO has to offer.
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If my website is slow will it affect my SEO?
In 2010, Google announced that websites that take too long to load will not be SEO, an eCommerce website should take no more than 7 seconds to load, Google will compare your website to your competitors Website speed so it is important that you can keep up with them, the website that operates the fastest gets browny SEO points.
Google is not the only one that is bothered by website speed apparently its also a major turn off for potential costumers and it is only a matter of time before they will leave your website and turn to a competitor and use their products and services instead. To learn more about how the speed of your website can affect e-commerce stores then read Matthew Woodward’s Guide To E-commerce SEO.
How to speed it up?
Choose a good host
You might be able to find a good offer and a cheap website host, but is it really worth it if you can’t get traffic to your WordPress? No traffic means no Adsense and thus no money, so there isn’t really any point having a WordPress website without an audience. Cheap hosts come with slow speeds this is why it is important that you invest in a good host that isn’t a shared host.
Install a plugin
Plugins for WordPress can be helpful and there are so many from SEO to plagiarism checker, you can even install a website speed optimizer plugin to help improve the speed of your WordPress website, all you need to do is install the plugin and activate it will do the rest itself.
- WP Rocket
- W3 Total Cache
- Compress Images
Having too many HD images that are large in size can slow your website down so it is important that you use an image resize in order to resize the images you place on your WordPress, WP SmusHit is a plugin that can help you reduce the size of the image, WordPress websites cannot operate without images that’s why this plugin will mark an integral role in the speed of your WordPress.
I’m losing customers due to my slow website what shall I do?
Firstly, as mentioned above, you need to change your website host, this applies to all kinds of websites not just WordPress, you need a higher spec hosting.
Database
The more data you have on your website the slower it will operate and the longer it will need to load, you need to clear your database or find a plugin that can do this for you. By performing a website speed test on your website your database problem will become prominent and you will also be provided with a solution to fix it.
Too many ads
If there are too many adverts on your website and in particular pop-ups this can cause a major delay in your website’s pages loading, it is important that you try to reduce the number of adverts that pop up on your website in order to increase user experience. Not only do adverts slow down the website speed they are also annoying and reduce the credibility of a website.
The theme of your website
Too many effects and highly designed themes are also a huge factor in slowing down websites, it is better to go for a simple theme that doesn’t require too much effort in order to load.
Websites play an integral part in the success of your business and having an SEO website is more important than having a storefront in today’s day and age. If you have a website that isn’t search engine optimized you are denying yourself of hundreds of potential customer because no one clicks on the second page of Google, most people will probably opt for the website that appears on the top of the search engine and you need to make sure that website is yours in order to generate leads and increase sales.