Some people enter the crosswalk and they have both crossed the road and are 80 meters down the opposite sidewalk when the light changes. Other people just barely cross it in time, and some step onto the curb even a few seconds afterwards. Those people who need the entire crossing time to do it tend to be older and have less pep in your step. No one expects them to be speedy, and they’re going to be accommodated by motorists. Websites never enter crosswalks, but ones that aren’t 80 meters down the opposite sidewalk within a few seconds of a server request are not going to be tolerated - even if they’re old. This is why there’s a focus on fast WordPress hosting in Canada.
Even more of a focus if someone has an eCommerce website for their small business and they know full well that having a sluggish site is going to mean plenty of potential customers reel the browser back and go elsewhere. The first reason they’re going to want to have the best hosting for fast websites in Canada is because they want to be retaining those visitors and getting the chance to sell them on whatever it is they have to offer. The viability of their business often depends on it, but the second reason is because they also know that faster loading website pages contribute to better search engine rankings too.
Which is another huge consideration, because if a business is coming up in the first pair of search engine result pages when people search for a provider who’s in that type of business then the chances of them making sales goes up exponentially. This is because people usually never go past the second page of their search engine results. WordPress business sites that are on managed WordPress hosting will have better SEO on an ongoing basis because that’s a part of what you get when you pay more for that type of web hosting. Indeed, managed web hosting takes a LOT off your plate and for a lot of people that’s worth what they pay for it.
We have always really promoted it here, but we’ll refrain from doing that too much this time. Instead what we’ll do with this week’s blog entry is look at ways that slow-loading WordPress sites on Canadian servers can be sped up. This will need to originate from secure data centers in Canada Often the fix is quite easy to identify and not to much is required to put it into place, but there can be other instances where there is a number of factors contributing to sluggish page loads. So let’s get right into it.
Speedy, No Plugins
There are estimates that only around 15% of websites are running at page loading speeds there are optimal for conversion rates. That would mean that the other 85% of websites take over five seconds to load, and most site visitors won’t have the patience to wait. The most ideal loading time for any website is under a second. Take longer than that and there will be drop-offs with the conversion rates. Most WordPress site masters will know that sites that are plugin-heavy may have those additions slowing the site down, but that’s not always the primary cause of slower-loading web pages. Fast WordPress hosting Canada can fix all of that.
Plus it’s entirely possible to speed up WordPress websites without plugins. And it will have everything to do with the host’s server where your website is originating from. If possible you can check to toggle the server location to best determine where most of your site visitors are sending their server requests as they aim to visit your homepage. It may be the case that you have visitors from all over the world distributed fairly evenly. If most of your site visitors (see customers) are making those requests from Canada then you want the best hosting for fast websites in Canada.
The solution here is the most simple of all, and that’s to switch to a Canada web hosting provider that can offer a Canadian-based data centre that will significantly improve page loading speeds for those visitors. When someone visits your webpage, data needs to travel through information superhighways and if that means crossing massive data cables that span between continents then it’s very likely your landing page is loading slowly.
A good starting suggestion here is to test your loading speed with GTmetrix, which is a free online resource.
Optimize Images
Suboptimal uses of images can be another very common cause of slow WordPress sites. It may seem like no big deal, but adding excessively large images to the site can make for a less-responsive website. You don’t necessarily need to visibly reduce the quality of images, but if a smaller image will do there it’s generally best to go with it.
What’s recommended is to use the Chrome Page Speed Insights extension to diagnose any problematic spots around your website. It gives specific advice on specific webpages and you can address images with Photoshop to optimize the file size of images. But this can take some time and you will need to install a new work process.
Minify Codes
Another possibility for increasing website speed is to ‘minify’ codes. What that means is to remove blank areas and non-essential additional characters in website coding. It will also involve the removal of tabs, new lines and comments. When you minify JavaScript and CSS scripts, you don’t change the function or design of your website but code volume is reduced significantly. This improves site page loading times nearly immediately. But manual minification can be very time consuming. You’d need to do it line by line and have an understanding of how coding works.
Instead what people who really know their way around this stuff will tell you is to use WordPress plugins that perform this automatically. WordPress managed’ hosting plans are services where the provider automatically handles elements of the backend aspect of your website. One of those includes the updating of out of date plugins that no longer perform optimally with your WP site.
However, is you have VPS web hosting for your site then the dedicated site resources will probably allow your site to have as much code behind it as you like and your landing page is still going to load fast because you’re never sharing bandwidth with other websites.
Keep in mind that plugins take up a surprisingly large amount of processing power. All plug-ins may also carry outdated scripts with jumbled commands that your version of WordPress can no longer understand. Simply suspending the activity of the plug-in can make a noticeable difference.
Evaluate Your Theme
The WordPress theme you have for your site may also be a contributor to slow load times. It’s less likely this is the cause of it, and this is not as common as compared to the early days of WordPress website building. If you’re using a reputable WordPress theme, consider whether your hosting plan is powerful enough to run it optimally.
One way to speed up WordPress is to either lighten your theme or boost your plan level (and power) using a powerful budget host. The standard equation in all of this that more access to resources will be required for as its if the size of data is greater than what your server can handle, and if there are traffic spikes this issue can become magnified quickly. And if you’re in eCommerce you definitely want that type of volume going to your site, but not having your site’s server being unable to cope.
Default (free) WordPress themes are typically suitable for websites with lesser data and capabilities.
Strategic Caching
‘Caching’ involves the storage of information packets. In a cache, data is temporarily group-stored so that browsers to access it very quickly when needed. This is usually done on the web surfers device and data is stored on the hard drive itself. Overall, caching mechanisms allow computers to handle data requests with minimal processing. Data is retrieved without putting the same strain on the server(s) where the website is being hosted. Regular site caching is part of the services you’ll get with WordPress managed hosting in Canada.
To improve site speed with caching the recommendation is to use an advanced type of caching plugin called Varnish. And W3 Total Cache. Between them there is usually a substantial effect on loading speeds. They create certain workflows that simplify how your WordPress page handles data with specific users.
Utilize Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network is a distribution of networks that optimize the performance of sites. WordPress websites with a CDN in place tend to be faster loading because these networks duplicate the static content hosted on the site. Content delivery networks create duplicates of JavaScript and CSS stylesheet codes, and images and embedded videos load faster too. All this content is distributed to remote servers located in different places globally.
Server proximity can boost the effective of a CDN for your site too. Regardless of where your visitor is located, it’s a good bet that there will be a remote server somewhere nearby. For example, if an incoming site visitor is in the UK, a European CDN server will be used in favour of a Canadian one. CDNs reduce the loading time needed for WordPress websites by taking away the extra pressure that is exclusively on your webs host’s server when you don’t have one.
Long Posts into Individual Pages
Search engines will routinely prioritize longer posts in favour of shorter ones. It’s been this way since the beginning of web browser algorithms. We talked about the importance of high search engine page rankings earlier, and one thing that can boost your SEO in a big way is to add adequate alternative text. The longer the content length, the longer a reader can pour into the material and the more information they can retrieve.
But all of this increases the data size of that page and reduces how quickly it can load. So it’s advisable to split posts into multiple pages. Readers that have come to the end of a page can then use a button to click onto the next one. Chances are that an engaging piece of content will also contain media such as video and images, so it’s best to keep the text shorter if that’s the case. It’s a good habit to get into.
Be mindful of excerpts on your site too as you look at ways to do well with fast WordPress hosting in Canada. If you have them then it will show the full content of each homepage post and on archives and your website will load more slowly and can also prevent visitors from clicking on the actual article.
Looking for the best hosting for fast websites in Canada? We have it right here for you at 4GoodHosting and we do what’s necessary to offer our users the best mix of reliability and affordability for free. You can migrate your site over here for free and our Managed WordPress hosting continues to be a popular choice for people who have this type of website representing their business and helping them build their customer base. Get in touch with us anytime you’d like if you want to know more, and we also can put you in the know about what’s needed to have PIPEDA compliant hosting Canada.
