E-commerce websites are trending in today’s digital world. This creates fierce competition to always stay on top of the SERPs ranking and social media algorithms.
A very important factor for higher ranking is site speed and performance. Faster websites tend to have a higher conversion rate. They have more visibility and a lower bounce rate.
Why Improve your Site Loading Time?
The main reason for enhancing the speed of your e-commerce website is a better user experience. No one likes slow-loading pages in today’s fast-paced world.
It is known that slow-working websites tend to have a higher bounce rate and low conversion rates. Thus, better site performance directly leads to more sales.
The speed of your site also impacts its SEO ranking. Lower site performance reduces the SERPs ranking of your website.
So, it is important to optimize your e-commerce site speed. As it improves visibility and engagement for the website.
Why is your Website Slow?
Many factors can impact the speed of your site. These factors not only reduce the speed but also lower the site performance.
Some of the reasons can be:
- Server load time
- Large image size
- Too many add-ons
- Number of redirects
- Web host
How can you improve your site performance?
There are many ways to optimize your e-commerce site’s speed and performance. Some examples are:
- Audit your Website
Different sites are bound to have different reasons for lagging. Make a detailed study of your site’s performance. This would provide you with the reasons why your website is slow.
It is important to monitor and measure the various components of your website. Then you can proceed to rectify those issues. It also makes your work easier and directs your efforts in the right direction.
- Strategies and Testing
After conducting an audit for your website, build a suitable strategy. Analyze the data to evaluate a strategy to boost performance and implement it.
It is also important to run tests to see if it suits your business. Optimize the strategy so that it perfectly fits your brand or site.
You can also get customer feedback to create the best strategy for your e-commerce website.
- Select the right Host provider
Web hosting is one of the most common reasons behind slow sites. Selecting the wrong host for running your website results in slow loading speed.
It is suggested to carefully select the hosting provider for your e-commerce website. Switching to a fast host provider can improve your performance manifolds. It also helps in increasing the page loading time.
- Optimize images and other media
Everyone wants to use high-quality images and videos for their website pages. But this often leads to site lagging.
It is important to optimize and compress the images before you use them on your site. Also, reduce the size of images used for thumbnails.
Optimizing your website’s media will automatically enhance the site’s speed and performance.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
If you have a worldwide customer base for your e-commerce store, use Content Delivery Network. This type of network has a group of servers spread across the world.
It ensures faster access to people using the site from different locations. Thus, it is perfect for businesses catering to different countries. Using CDN can help you to enhance your e-commerce site speed.
- Reduce the number of Redirects
If you have a large number of redirects, it can cause unnecessary delays on your site. Too many redirects reduce the site speed as well as the performance.
It requires the user to wait for the new page to load. This results in a lag in site loading time. Also, there shouldn’t be any broken links on the site. It must be regularly updated. Broken links and redirects should be minimized to optimize performance.
- Prioritize Mobile Performance
The stats show that people prefer using mobiles rather than desktops. So, it is suggested to use a responsive web design.
Prioritize making your website mobile user-friendly. As most of your audience would be using phones. This enhances site performance. Even Google ranks mobile-friendly sites higher than desktop sites. Run tests to optimize the website’s mobile performance.
- Utilize Browser Caching
Caching allows you to temporarily store the information on the hard drive. This reduces the number of database requests.
It is the most effective way to optimize the e-commerce site’s performance. It reduces the time taken to load a page by directly accessing the temporary storage.
Instead of requesting the database each time, the site requests information from the cache.
- Use fewer Pop-ups
Product quick-view pop-ups might upgrade your site navigation but use them sparingly. This is because too many pop-ups make the website slower.
Overuse of pop-ups significantly reduces your page loading time. This can affect the customer’s experience on your page.
- E-commerce Platform
Your e-commerce platform can have a huge impact on your site’s speed and performance. The platform you use must have the necessary infrastructure to improve loading time.
It is suggested to use a platform that is made solely for e-commerce stores or sites. Some examples are Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, Wix, etc.
Major Takeaways
Slow and underperforming websites can drive away your customers. It is essential to enhance your site’s performance. Better site speed can directly lead to a boost in sales.
Create and implement suitable strategies to improve your site speed. Higher site loading time adversely affects the user’s experience.
Follow the above-mentioned steps to boost the speed and performance of your e-commerce site.
Visit www.theblogginghacks.com to know more about e-commerce website optimization and other digital marketing tactics.