How fast your pages load matters
A key performance issue—people don’t wait for slow sites
We build streamlined, optimized sites to ensure your site loads fast and delivers on performance.
Performance. What does that really mean? Your site loads quickly. Images load quickly. Areas we focus on, for best performance.
How your Site is Built
To address site performance we first take a deep dive into the build. WordPress is built on a MySQL database, and for all the benefits of doing so, it will always be top heavy because of the platform. A simple site built in PHP with only HTML and CSS will outperform a WordPress. That said, WordPress offers so many benefits, it’s the clear choice for most sites. While we can deliver features and functionality in either, the ease of use and availability of plugins make it worth the effort.
Developing WordPress since 2004, we’ve found WordPress to be the Gold Standard for Content Management Systems (CMS).
Hosting
Not all hosting plans and providers you use are the same. Each host identifies their different grades of hosting. The most common form is a Shared server. That means your site is on a server with hundreds of sites. Economical, yes. but not always the fastest. Virtual servers are most common, where many clients use the resources, like hard drive space and bandwidth, but each lives in it’s own space, unaffected by what’s running on others. Dedicated servers mean only you are using the resources of that computer, which is connected to the internet.
Content delivery network (CDN)
CDN is a network of servers that all host your site. It gives us both speed and security. Visitors to you site are directed to the closest server, often cutting your load time in half. Much more secure than one server, any issues are mitigated as your data isn’t just on one computer. A huge performance bump, this is a great choice for shopping carts or sites heavy on video of images.
Cleaner Code
We’re aware of when things load, thanks for great tools like Google PageSpeed or browser tools like Chrome DevTools that identify each and every item, errors, and more. Right click on a web page, and click Inspect and you can see how we diagnose issues and improve site performance. We review the way we load services, like compressing CSS style sheets or combining several.
Image compression matters. We think about each and every photo and illustration we add, and do our best to manage quality vs. how ling it takes to download.
PlugIns often slow you down
Each and every plug-in adds to server load. Some are trivial, but we work to minimize how many plugins we use. Wherever we can replace a plugin with code, we’ll do so. We also look at what each plugin provides, ensuring that we absolutely have to use every tool we’ve installed.
Caching
We often deploy tools that manage your cache. Here, we identify larger files and instruct your computer when to download them again. Why download something again, if it hasn’t changed? Refreshing your cache is an important part of maintaining your Magento store as well.
Before we launch your site, we run speed tests and correct issues so your site is performing at its best.