Google-Friendly Web Design

Don’t Hire a Web Designer in Geelong Until You’ve Read This.

According to data from 10 billion user visits of top online retailers, over 50% of your mobile visitors will leave a page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. And for every 100ms delay, your conversion rate drops by almost 10%.

So, if your website is slow, you are losing business.

Unfortunately, most WordPress websites are extremely slow.

Before I get into why, it’s worth mentioning that when it comes to performance, WordPress is light years ahead of other content management systems like Wix and Squarespace. It’s also what most agencies use to build their client websites. It’s what most websites are built with (43% of websites are built with WordPress). Even newsrooms from big names like Spotify and Microsoft are built using WordPress. Don’t use it because other people are using it though. Use it because it’s open source, giving you full control over design, functionality, and performance.

So, here are four reasons why so many websites are slow…

Firstly, most websites are being built with heavy drag-and-drop page builders with a gazillion design options. This makes design easier, but the tradeoff is a heavy bloated website that loads unnecessary code. Heavy bloated websites are slow, which increases page load time and lowers your conversions.

Secondly, many websites are being built with off-the-shelf WordPress themes and templates from marketplaces like ThemeForest. Again, this can significantly speed up the design process. All you have to do is import the template’s demo content, replace the text and images with your own and you are done. Not much design is actually done, just a few clicks to import and upload. The website might look good on the front end, but these themes are almost always poorly coded, bloated, and error-prone.

Thirdly, plugins are being used as quick fixes to add functionality. I often hear people in web design saying, ‘There is a plugin for that’. Plugins can be great, but so often, poorly coded plugins are chosen. In addition, they usually haven’t been updated in months, sometimes years, and people wonder why their website is slow, broken, or has been hacked.

Lastly, most websites use poor hosting. From what I’ve seen auditing websites, poor hosting often plays the biggest role in making a website slow. Slow websites provide a bad user experience.

Must read: 👉 Best WordPress Hosting

Many website owners come to me because they need help speeding up their websites. Sometimes it’s a quick fix but oftentimes it requires a full website rebuild using a performance-focused technology stack.

So, when hiring a WordPress web designer, make sure they aren’t using cookie-cutter template themes, heavy drag-and-drop page builders, outdated and unnecessary plugins, or poor hosting.

Got a question? Send me an email – hello@maxjacobs.com.au

Slow website? Request a website speed audit.