It is very important for a website to load quickly. Yet, in the world of online shopping, they are even more critical. Customers will be scared away from your WooCommerce store if it is too slow, costing you sales and money. So, if you want your online business to do well, you need to know how to speed up WooCommerce.
Slower-loading websites can harm your company in a number of ways, including lowering your business metrics (returns, conversions), increasing your cart abandonment rate, and reducing your customer loyalty, brand image, visits, and search engine results page (SERP) visibility.
No one enjoys having to wait when dealing with a company, whether physically or virtually. So you need to optimize your WooCommerce store’s speed as soon as possible. It’s not rocket science anyone can do it.
What Is the Ideal Load Time?
In reality, there is no ideal load time specified. However, the research shows that if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load, 53% of users will give up and go elsewhere. The user experience and online revenue might be negatively affected by even a 100-millisecond delay in page response time.
Based on Google's benchmark for mobile speed, here's how likely it is that a visitor will leave a website:
Tools to Measure Web Performance?
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights has been the best way to test and grade your website for many years. It's a simple tool made by Google that compares websites and grades them on a scale from 1 to 100 for both mobile and desktop. The faster the site is, the higher the number.
The user interface is pretty simple, with only one field for the URL. Once the test is run, you'll get detailed information about things like render-blocking code, time to first byte (TTFB), page sizes, and more. Under each section, you'll find a list of suggested actions that should make the website run faster.
2. Pingdom Speed Test
Another time-tested and widely used website speed-testing tool is Pingdom. You don't need to sign in to utilize it, but the reports aren't as extensive as what you'd get with Google PageSpeed Insights. Site performance is rated from 0 to 100 and broken down into response codes, content size, request kinds, domains, and a waterfall chart where you can view specifics on how long it takes for files to load.
3. GTmetrix
With GTmetrix, you can find out a great deal of information about your site's performance, including how fast it loads, how long it takes to load, and how well it performs. The problems that were uncovered by the test are detailed by GTmetrix, and the software also offers advice on how to address them.
If you don't sign up, you can only take the test once, and only from one computer. The default location is Vancouver, Canada, however after creating an account you can change it, as well as your browser and internet provider. This should help you better understand how your website performs under various conditions.
How to Speed Up WooCommerce Store?
A store needs to be quick and deliver a great experience to visitors if it wants to be successful and drive more sales. The success or failure of a company is ultimately determined by the performance of its stores.
In this article, I'll talk about a few ways to make your WooCommerce site run faster. WooCommerce stores that want to make money should always make sure that their store is running at its best. Also, you can upgrade yourself by reading the best WooCommerce blogs in the market.
1. Set up a content delivery network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a service that stores copies of your website's static files on a distributed group of servers all around the world. That way, no matter where a user is accessing your site from, they will always be downloading those files from the closest data center.
Using a CDN also reduces the strain on your own servers, so you gain either way. Popular CDNs are MaxCDN, Sucuri, Cloudflare, StackPath, KeyCDN, Cloudways CDN, etc.
2. Reliable Hosting Provider
It's no secret that using a fast and trustworthy WordPress hosting service will greatly increase your site's loading time. A reliable hosting service that guarantees 99.9% uptime is essential for a WooCommerce online shop. The fact that there are several traffic spikes due to specials, offers, and changing seasons makes quick hosting all the more crucial for an online retailer's website. Your WooCommerce store shouldn't experience any sluggishness in page load times because of the unexpected traffic surge, so be sure your hosting provider can handle it.
It is best to choose a hosting provider that:
- Provides worldwide data centers
- Offers CDN and SSD-based storage
- Integrates performance-boosting technologies
3. Optimize Images
One of the best ways to boost overall page performance is by optimizing or compressing photos. Images can be optimized such that they seem nearly identical to the originals while taking up much less space. Because of the decreased file sizes, the pages should load more quickly. This step could be included in WooCommerce store development process.
This impact is exacerbated when talking about online stores or collections of goods that feature several images. If you post low-quality photographs of your products, it could slow down your online shop.
Thanks to the availability of excellent automated solutions, optimizing product photos is no longer a time-consuming human process.
4. Install a Caching Plugin
When a customer browses your online shop, their web browser must download all of your site's content, including pictures, videos, scripts, style sheets, and more. This may take a bit, depending on how big your site is. If you activate caching, however, their browser will remember your site's data and load them considerably faster the next time they visit.
Breeze, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, Swift Cache, and many more are just a few of the greatest WordPress cache plugin options available on the WordPress plugins directory. Breeze WordPress Cache plugin is my top pick due to its user-friendliness and ease of usage.
5. Choose a lightweight WooCommerce theme
A website's load time is often overlooked while making aesthetic decisions by designers. Therefore, the front-end aesthetics are generally prioritized over the page load speed.
Choose a theme that is both lightweight and performance-optimized while launching your website. The theme should be fast and have a clean codebase in addition to being responsive.
Speed up your WooCommerce Store Now!
To ensure that your WooCommerce store loads as quickly as possible, you'll need to make a few adjustments. However, the improved user experience that results from the faster page loads can convert directly into increased revenue.
In an ideal world, you would employ every conceivable technique to speed up WooCommerce. However, if you prefer to take things slowly, we suggest beginning with optimizing all product photos. Otherwise, the best performance gains may be made by most websites by utilizing a content delivery network (CDN) and a caching plugin. It’s not easy for everyone, so one of the best suggestion is to opt for a WooCommerce store development company. They know it better to how easily step forward your optimization process.