According to Google, speed is a significant ranking factor for websites. Google made it their mission to fix the problem of poorly-designed websites by “de-emphasizing” slow websites.
While there are many issues that could make a website slow down, there are 3 primary contributors to a website’s loading speed:
Some WordPress themes are clunky and poorly developed. I use the Hello theme for its lean, customizable design and speed; however, I’m flexible in other WordPress themes as well.
In WordPress web development, one should be cautious about using templates and plugins, as they can get bulky and create bloat in the database. Templates should be used as a guide to help build a leaner, faster, better-performing version in WordPress.
Page builders play a big role in the website’s speed. Gutenberg and Oxygen are lightweight visual builders that work best for speed performance.
Finally, hosting is an important factor in speed as well. A cheap, shared host will be slow, especially if the website has a lot of videos, images, or high traffic.
How does hosting work for or against the website speed?
In browsing, users are accessing files from a remote server and making a request for information from your website, which has that information on the remote server.
The time it takes for your web page to load depends on the user’s computer speed, and the speed of your web hosting servers. Web hosts execute thousands of different pieces of code to display a single page, so their space and ability to do that matters.
My partner and I prefer to use the following software for domain and website hosting:
Trends and data predict that nearly three-quarters of people worldwide will access the internet via their smartphone by 2025. Back in 2010, then-CEO of Google told the world they’d be shifting attention to mobile users. They’ve been true to their word, and rankings now rely heavily on the mobile friendliness of your website.
Building a responsive website with a mobile-first approach means starting with the smallest screen—mobile phones—and designing the pages for those users first. Then, the design is adapted for bigger screens, adjusting elements and materials to meet the needs of those screen users.
This process includes all the same steps of making a desktop site responsive, including:
Now, mobile-first web development means starting the project lifecycle in a mobile environment, and then adjusting larger screens accordingly.
Organizations need to meet users where they are to stay competitive. WordPress is at the forefront of mobile web development because of its dynamic versatility in features, compliance, and functionality.
