1. Resize Images
Never upload full-size images to your website. Photos taken from your phone or camera are far bigger than they need to be and are often a whopping 2 – 8 MB in file size. This can dramatically slow down the loading time of your web pages.
- Use photo editing apps like Canva or Photoshop to resize images
- Full-width images should be a maximum of 1500 pixels wide
- Other images can be 1000 pixels or less, depending on their use
- Use JPG format or WebP (not PNG)
- Your images should be 200 KB or less in file size (that’s 0.2 MB)
2. Core Updates
It is vitally important that you keep your website’s plugins, themes, and WordPress version up-to-date. Outdated software can cause compatibility issues and pose a security risk. In addition, you could lose out on access to new features that have been released.
- Regularly check for updates in the Dashboard
- Backup your website before any major updates
- Update your server’s PHP version if neccessary
- Even if your software is set to update automatically, you should still check periodically as some plugins need updating manually
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Ensuring everything you add to your website (new posts, pages photos and products) is optimised for search engines will help your website to rank highly in Google. The Yoast SEO or RankMath plugin has been installed on all CRJ Design websites to help you with this.
- Use relevant keywords and phrases throughout your content
- If you have a blog, update it regularly (once a week or fortnight)
- Use the SEO section on your posts, pages, products and images to optimise them for SEO
4. Monitoring
A key aspect of your website’s success is monitoring your analytics and reports to see what’s working and what’s not. Using this information, you can make changes to your website and marketing efforts to increase sales.
- For Ecommerce websites, check your reports to see your order statistics
- Check Google Analytics to see how many visitors your website is getting, and where they’re coming from
- Check Google Search Console to see where your website is ranking in search results
5. Renewals
To ensure your website keeps running smoothly, don’t forget to renew your domain name and web hosting. This is usually done annually. If possible, set your domains and hosting to renew automatically.
- Enable automatic renewals with your domain registrar and hosting company
- Ensure your billing information and card details are up to date
- Don’t let your domain or hosting expire
- For CRJ Design Hosting & Domains clients, you can login to the hosting portal to manage your renewals and payments
Follow these tips to ensure your website runs smoothly, ranks highly in Google, and continues to convert visitors into customers.
Don’t forget you can access over 100 help guides and tutorials at help.crjdesign.co.uk if you get stuck!