Ways To Improve Speed Of WooCommerce Store

By admin September 18, 2021 2003 Views

For an eCommerce site, speed is everything and also gives a better shopping experience to the users. The faster your site loads then, the quicker would be the transactions, and it also improves ROI and results in happier customers. Today’s shoppers expect clean HD images, videos, live chat, better reviews, personalization of products, and real-time inventory. Online buyers are expecting a better shopping experience from WooCommerce stores, leading to more revenue and profits. WooCommerce is one of the free and popular eCommerce platforms used for creating an online store based on your requirements. Read on to know some of the important ways to improve the speed of the WooCommerce store.

Measuring Speed Of WooCommerce Store

Now that you know that speed of the WooCommerce store is important to know why your site is getting slow. Running a website speed test will help in identifying the bottlenecks such as data connection and other issues. There are several tools available for measuring the speed of your site.

Some of the tools available for testing speed

Google PageSpeed Insights
Gtmetrix
Pingdom
Load Impact
Show Slow

Tips To Improve Speed Of WooCommerce Store

1. Starting With High-Quality Host

Hosting for any site is the foundation for the speed of any WooCommerce store. For any hosting, it is crucial to look into these features.

Server-side caching
Other resources like bandwidth and RAM
High performing SSD drives
Usage of updated software like MYSQL, PHP

If you are using a shared hosting plan, then there are many websites using the same resources. As many websites are piled up in a single host, there is a need to choose a dedicated hosting plan that gives your own server space.

2. Choosing Fast and Reliable Theme

If you are about to choose a complex theme, then there is a chance that your site loads slower as there are more plugins and page builders. It is not true to say you should not use a heavy theme, but it is important to know the pros and cons of the theme you are about to use for your store. In most of the themes, there is an option of disabling the features you are not using. To know the speed of the page after applying a theme, try to know the speed by running the demo pages in the speed testing tools.

3. Increase The WordPress Memory Limit

By default, WordPress allocates 32 MB of memory for PHP, which can be increased to 40 MB for a single site and 64 MB for multiple sites. In many cases, the allocated memory will not be enough, and if, by chance, you have exceeded the limit, then you will get an error message. For your WooCommerce site, it is recommended to increase the memory limit to 256 MB and always backup the files before editing. In the case you have lost the file, you can replace the file.

4. Compress The Images And Optimize Delivery

Images for any eCommerce site take up more space, and most of the WooCommerce sites are loaded up with product images and banners. To increase the speed of your site, it is important to optimize all the images before uploading them to the site. Even though videos take up more space, they do not affect the site’s speed as they are loaded on demand in most cases.

Here are some of the things to take care of before uploading images

Choose the Right Format for your Images
Compress images using the right tools
Use responsive images for delivery on all devices
Look for lazy load offscreen and hidden images
Offload images delivery to Fast CDNs

5. Use Cache Plugin

Caching enables the merchants to speed up the WooCommerce store by storing copy resources. Caching lowers the amount of data being sent between the shopper’s browser, the database, and the server to make future requests more quickly.

You need to pay attention to the following

Server Caching
Browser Caching

Some of the Recommended Caching plugins

Breeze WordPress Caching Plugin
WP Rocket
W3 Total Cache

6. Use Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN is a framework of various servers to deliver pages and content to the user. The delivery is based on the geographical location of the user, origin of the webpage, and content of the delivery server. When a customer visits your eCommerce store, it is not necessary that all the data is transferred from your location but can be loaded from a server located near the shopper’s browser. This feature is more useful for eCommerce stores having international reputations, and it is useful for reaching any consumer based on their geographical location.

Some of the useful CDN services available

Cloudflare
Cloudways
Sucuri
MaxCDN
StackPath
KeyCDN

7. Limit The Plugins Used For Your Store

Plugins are benefits provided by WordPress as they provide more flexibility. It does not mean that you should install all of them as plugins impact the speed of your eCommerce site, and one should install plugins that have multiple uses and check for reviews before installing the plugins.

8. Using HTTP 2

HTTP was once known to have limited the speed of any website, but there are many advances in HTTP protocol that helped improve the speed of eCommerce websites. After the advent of social media sites, streaming devices, and smartphone apps, HTTP has developed a major update called HTTP 1.1. The advanced version HTTP/2 was introduced in 2015 to keep up with the growing demands of the internet, and it brought with it amazing improvements in speed, efficiency, and security.

9. Clean The DataBase

The database is used to store data, and in the context of eCommerce sites, data falls under

Site Content
Transactional Data

If you require a large database, it may take time to process the leads, and also the response time also slows down. Cleaning up your database will help you improve your page loading speed, and it also unloads a considerable space for your WooCommerce store to run faster and more smoothly.

Plugins used for Cleaning Data Bases

WP-Optimize
WP Clean Up Optimizer
Advanced Database Cleaner
Clean Up Booster

10. Remove Bloat and Update Site Regularly

For better performance of any WooCommerce Store, it is crucial to update WordPress, WooCommerce, theme, extensions, and plugins. If there are plugins that are no longer used, then consider disabling or removing them. Likewise, if there are better versions of any plugins, then consider looking for better alternatives.

Conclusion

For any eCommerce site, time is everything, and a fast WooCommerce site helps generate money, user experience, and ROI. Ecommerce stores need to have ample features to engage with their users. For designing and delivering a rich, responsive, and fast WooCommerce store, you need to take the help of a professional. At Ayatas Technologies, we have WooCommerce designers and developers experienced in designing the best eCommerce store for your business. Contact us for more details.

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