Between choosing the right hosting provider and providing digital accessibility, ensuring your website is working can seem like an impossible task. After all, your website is often the first interaction your potential customers will have with your brand.
Whether you’re using WordPress for the first time or just feeling overwhelmed with your current site, we have some tips for you. We can also help you boost your speeds and improve your website’s overall performance.
Choose The Right Hosting Provider For Your WordPress Site.
Hosting is the foundation of your website, so choosing the right provider is critical to your website’s success. You need to check for reliable uptime, fast server speeds, and fast page loading speeds.
With so many different providers, it can be daunting having to make the right choice. You need to ensure you’re either working with a knowledgeable digital agency with experience working with hosting providers or doing a lot of your own research before making your final choice.
With so much misinformation out there, you really need to take your time if you’re choosing to find your own provider. Unfortunately, if you choose an unreliable hosting provider, you’re risking limited service for your website and potential downtime which can result in lost leads.
To find out more about Laser Red’s hosting & support packages, get in contact with our team.
Keep On Top Of Updates.
Keeping your WordPress core, themes, and plugins up to date is essential. This is not only for keeping everything safe and secure but also to enable peak performance.
Updates often include bug fixes, security patches, and performance boosts to everything that keeps your WordPress site working to its full potential. By not keeping on top of your updates, you risk holes in the security of your site which can lead to your site being hacked.
It’s not enough to just create an optimal site and then hope for the best. Your site needs to be continuously updated and monitored to ensure that it is always running smoothly and safely.
Stand Out Online.
When it comes to website themes, one size does not fit all. Your business and brand are unique, and your website should be an extension of this originality.
Creating a bespoke theme is challenging for newcomers to WordPress, yet it is an absolute must if you want to build brand loyalty and recognition. That’s why we specialise in creating bespoke themes tailored to your requirements.
A bespoke theme will not only help you stand out but will also allow you to create a seamless integration with your site functionality. Many WordPress themes come with limitations, which will compromise your site’s overall performance and usability.
Don’t settle for a copy of a hundred other websites. Let us design a website that showcases your business’s true essence and helps you make a lasting impression online.
Be Selective With WordPress Plugins.
To get the most out of WordPress, you’ll need to be using a verity of plugins for performance, SEO and security purposes. However, choosing too many plugins (or the wrong ones) can slow down your site and cause unnecessary bulk.
When choosing plugins, you need to select just enough to give your website the functionality it needs without overcrowding it. You also need to take some time to read user reviews and ensure that the plugin has regular updates available.
As almost anyone can upload a plugin to WordPress, you need to avoid downloading something which could hinder your website’s performance or cause a security issue.
You need to review your plugins regularly to ensure that you still need them and that they’ve been updated by their original developers.
Embrace The Magic of Caching.
Caching is like having a secret shortcut to lightning-fast page loading. You can upload a plugin which will do the hard work for you by enabling browser caching, page caching, and minification.
Caching is essential for WordPress performance optimisation as it reduces server load, improves page load times, enhances scalability, boosts SEO efforts, and provides a better user experience. Essentially, when utilised correctly, it’s like magic.
Optimising Your Images.
Images are fantastic for grabbing attention, but large file sizes can slow down your website. It’s important to review your images before uploading them; although you don’t want to compromise on their quality as low quality images can negatively impact your search engine rankings.
Don’t just reduce the quality of your images before uploading them to your site as a means of making the file size smaller. Instead, utilise a plugin which will retain the quality of your images without slowing your site down.
Your images will look flawless, and your website loading speeds will remain fast. There are also “lazy loading” plugins that save the day by loading images only when visitors scroll to them.
Go Global With A CDN.
Expand your website’s reach and speed with a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Think of it as a worldwide team of servers working together to serve your content from the closest possible location to your visitors.
Don’t let slow performance and security concerns hold back your WordPress site’s true potential. By using a CDN, your WordPress site will become a high-performing, secure, and globally accessible platform that drives your business forward.
To find out more about how a CDN will benefit your website, get in touch with our team.
Build With Accessibility In Mind.
By prioritising accessibility, you create a user-friendly website that accommodates individuals with disabilities, improves usability for all users, and enhances the overall user experience. Remember, everyone benefits from accessibility as it creates an easy-to-navigate user experience.
Accessible websites typically have well-structured content, straightforward navigation, and optimised media elements, contributing to improved search engine optimisation (SEO).
Search engines value websites that offer exceptional user experiences, and accessibility plays a crucial role in achieving that. With around 24% of the UK having some form of disability, ignoring accessibility is the same as ignoring a quarter of the population.
Ensure A High-Quality Initial Build.
Save yourself time and money by ensuring that your website is built correctly from the start. It’s much easier to consider all of these aspects in the initial stages and plan accordingly than try to fix them retrospectively.
With most people first interacting with a new business online, staying ahead of the click™️ has never been more important. If you’re unsure how to build a website that works for you, contact our team who have all the tools you need.
And remember, WordPress is just a tool; how you use it will determine your online success.