Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Actually, download speed matters on all Web sites. Even if your WordPress Web site has compelling content with graphics and pictures, image and user convenience are equally important. So your site’s download speed matters – a lot.
Download speed is important to search engines because they want to be known for providing fast access to sites for Internet users.
Google was a pioneer in the quest for fast downloads, as I explained in this article: In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google.
In huge numbers, businesses, independent professionals and bloggers use WordPress to manage their content.
WordPress is affordable and is easy-to-use – even for non-technical folks.
But as a WordPress site grows in page-content, download speed can become a quandary.
Unlike driving on an interstate freeway, don’t limit the speed of your site’s download time.
Here are five tips:
1. Daily check your site’s Dashboard, as WordPress frequently issues updates. That’s where WordPress will advise you. Caution is advised, however – update your system after the bugs have been worked out in the Beta testing versions.
2. To insure picture-perfect resolution, do a couple of things – Don’t insert a larger-size picture than necessary, and consider installing the complimentary SmushIt Plugin. The plugin will shrink the size of the picture without damaging the resolution.
3. Don’t allow pingbacks from other sites – unless a site has a stronger Google page rank (PR) than your site. Google assigns a PR to each site on a scale of zero to 10. For example, if your site has a three PR and a site with a two PR pings to you, Google’s algorithms will likely penalize you, just as they do if you have too many links to other sites. Many WordPress users turn off the pingback and trackback feature, so their systems don’t slow down.
4. Personally, I don’t recommend it for small sites, but the jQuery Image Lazy Load plugin is known for speeding up download time, which you might find helpful if your site has a lot of pictures and graphics. It’s designed to initially accelerate the download time of images above the page’s fold. As your visitors scroll down a page, the other pictures will appear for the visitors to view.
5. Many WordPress sites utilize a cache plugin, especially the W3 Total Cache to increase download speeds.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related links:
Checklist: 14 Strategies to Rock on Google — Periodic changes in Google’s search criteria and algorithms have indeed hurt many Web sites. But it’s possible to bullet-proof your site’s prominence on Google by taking 14 precautions, which is worth your time and energy. Google has perennially owned about a 66 percent search-market share in the U.S. and a 90 percent share worldwide.
Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site — Google has unveiled vital information about what it considers important for Web site ranking. Without divulging proprietary information, Google emphasized it’s all about value – quality for Internet users. In other words, there are no shortcuts for success. There’s been a lot of buzz about Google’s algorithm updates, and how they affect Internet sites.
SEO and Other Strategic Tips for a No.1 Rated Blog — To own your blogging niche, you must understand the evolving process — important basics in search engine optimization (SEO) and other strategies. If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you know success doesn’t keep come automatically. Blogging is arduous work. You must have a strategic blogging goal.
“Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.”
-William Ellery Channing
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