What is the Best Way to Optimize a Website? This has been a popular question for beginner bloggers and new website owners.
When I first began learning about WordPress there were some aspects that I learned pretty quick but speaking honestly-it wasn’t website optimization.
The topics of SEO and website optimization seemed overwhelming. I was easily frustrated because I just didn’t get it.
In this post I will describe the best way to optimize a website. Keep in mind there are several tips when it comes to optimization.
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This post is not meant to be an all inclusive of every single method, but if you use the outline you will see some great speed improvements.
Best Way to Optimize a Website
You will find many articles published on this topic. Each will offer some sort of guide you can follow and end up with the best results.
To understand the best way to optimize a website lets look at some optimization basics.
What is Website Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or Website Optimization is tweaking specific aspects of your website.
This is done so Google can understand your content and potentially rank your website in search results.
Things like the design of your site, the wording of your content, and even images on your website can be tweaked.
Every step you take in this process will be beneficial for your website.
Why is Website Optimization Important
The main reason is providing a great user experience.
When your visitor lands on your website the goal is to keep them on your page.
A slow loading website can be frustrating and cause that visitor to leave your website.
The goal is to do everything possible to attract and maintain visitors to your website/blog.
Another reason would be Google. The search engine keeps an index of web pages.
Whenever a search is entered Google quickly goes through its index to find the most relevant results for that search.
Optimization will help your website/blog to be found in those results.
Imagine tracking your website/blog performance, noticing an upward trend in your website/blog traffic.
More traffic can lead to more page views and visitors taking advantage of whatever your website/blog offers.
This scenario is awesome. It happens everyday for many websites and blog owners and the best part about it is this is100% FREE traffic.
That’s right! FREE traffic!
It is highly advised if you are creating content to SEO that content and deliver the best.
Related Post: 7 ways to Make Your Website Faster
How Do I Optimize my Website for SEO
You will need to first learn how your website shows up on speed test tools.
Some of the more accessible and free tools you can use are Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom Tools, and Gtmetrix.
Each of these speed tools will rank and score your website/blog load time.
All you will need to do is:
- Go to the website
- Insert your website URL
- Click analyze
- Wait for results
You will see a report that gives you all scores and recommendations to improve.
This example is from a website I designed for a friend.
What is a Good Page Speed Score
Each of the speed tools will use different metrics in the test.
Your focus should be getting a website that loads in under 2-3 seconds.
Visitors to your website can be impatient when it comes to a slow loading website.
Just how long will users wait for a page to load? This can vary but there is data we can use to help us understand user habits.
According to 2018 research by Google 53% of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
How Can I Speed Up My Website
1. Hosting
2. You will need a good caching plugin
3. Optimize all images
4. Use a Lightweight Theme
5. Minimize the number of Plugins
All hosting providers are not the same. There are some that offer additional speed boost options that will be helpful for optimization.
I recommend SiteGround. They have reasonable plans, great support and dependable website uptime.
You will be given two pay options. A month to Month option or the annual option.
Using the annual option would save you money because you pay for the year upfront.
My SiteGround hosting is billed on the month to month option. This works for me and it’s how I best handle my expenses.
When it comes to hosting payment options you will have to determine what will work best for your business.
How Can I Make My Website Faster
Looking at caching there are both free and paid versions of plugins to choose from.
I’m recommending WP Fastest cache which is a free WordPress plugin.
This plugin seems to do a good job for a freebie and more importantly doesn’t conflict with other plugins you may be using.
To optimize your images you can use SMUSH which is a fremium type plugin.
SMUSH has a paid version which gives you full access to all features. I use the free version and it works perfectly fine.
This is one of those you can determine if you need free or paid version.
For More Optimization Tips Download the FREE-Make Your Website Faster Guide
A good looking theme is important, but a good performing theme is priority.
You will need a lightweight theme to achieve good optimization.
A free theme that is well optimized is ASTRA. This theme can be a great look for your website design.
If you want ultimate options and the ability to have full control over customizing try ISABELLE theme from Bluchic.
I believe less is more. When it comes to plugins you want to keep them to a minimum.
Don’t use multiple plugins that do similar functions.
Related Reading: 9 Must Have WordPress Plugins
In Conclusion
- Choose a good Hosting Provider
- Use A caching plugin
- Optimize all images
- Find a lightweight theme
- Minimize plugins
Now over to you
I’m curious How have you been optimizing your website? Can you recommend some great SEO tips?
If you still have questions about the best way to optimize a website, feel free to reach out to us. getblogtips@gmail.com
29 Responses
Very interesting and useful blog- website . I will surely keep on reading it xxx thank you! Silvia
Awesome thank you! Let us know if this is helpful or any input you may have
Thank you for sharing this valuable information!
Thank you Lauren! Hope it helps
I agree that it’s so important for a blog to load fast. I love Smush as well! I’ll look into your other recommendations. Thank you!
You are welcome hope this helps thanks Izzy M
Awesome article! I’m concerned with optimizing my website right now, but I didn’t know how to best do that and what tools to use. I’m definitely going to check out the website speed tools and the caching plugin. Thank you for sharing this 🙂
Hey Crystal There are other ways to improve load time, these are some simple and non techie steps to take. Hope this helped
Very informative. I need to use these for my website.
www thesmileon.com
yes I hope this was helpful! Thanks Surabhi
Great advice! When it comes to optimizing our websites for SEO, we have to consider every piece of the puzzle, and this is a big one that’s often overlooked. Keywords alone won’t do it, we have to go that extra step…
Absolutely! Best to get it as early as possible for long term results. Thanks for stopping by Britt!
Thanks for this content hey. It is never easy setting up a website especially if you are just starting out.
It certainly isn’t, I stumbled so much in the beginning. Thanks Abigail!
Very informative post! Thank you for providing the free resources to check website speed and for recommending the free plugins. I emailed you a question about installing and activating the plugins. I intend to subscribe to your blog because this is an area where I still have a lot to learn.
Awesome thanks! There is some additional tweaks you can add to work on load time. Hope this helps. Thanks Robyn
This was very helpful and easy to understand
Awesome Kim.. glad you stopped by
Very useful information! It makes a change reading something about blogging that is written well. It has helped me. Thank you. Steph
Thanks Steph I’m so glad this helped..Thanks for reading
These are good points. I hate slow loading times.
Yes Betty I bounce real quick
Great Tips! I use shortpixel to help optimize my images as well. It will compress your image if you are not comfortable doing so or, like me, forget to compress the images before upload!
Great read, thank you!
Thanks for dropping by
I just started a new blog and I have yet to focus on SEO, because like you said at the beginning of the article, it just seems so overwhelming. Thanks for sharing this!
Yes eventually you find your way and start organizing all your blog tasks
Great points! I realized only too late that my previous host was slowing me down tremendously with their heavy java scripts. Now I know and I changed the host. Much better now.
Glad to hear you were able to get that worked out