If you are among those who are wondering, “I have an online presence, then why aren’t people buying?” Well, having a web store is not enough you need to look after it too, or else nothing is going to happen, neither customers nor conversions.
The success of an online store depends upon maintaining it more than developing a website. A lot many factors like security, content, navigation, etc. need frequent and expert attention, but the one that is the most important among all is the website speed. We all are aware that customers today don’t even wait a split second on a site that takes just a second delay in loading and why would one when there are thousands of competitors? You will be surprised to know that, that one-second delay causes 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7% loss in conversions. So, you can guess how much importance does website speed holds in your sales.
Since you got an idea, now let’s understand how you can reduce your page loading to less than 3 seconds, and drive good traffic to your print on demand website and gain huge conversions.
1. Choose the right hosting service
A hosting service must be chosen according to your needs as it plays a major role in your website’s management and performance; including page speeds. You have three options when it comes to selecting a hosting service – Shared hosting, VPS hosting, and Dedicated server.
Shared hosting means you share certain resources like CPU, disk space, and RAM with other sites hosted on the same server. It is the cheapest but is meant for low-traffic sites as traffic spikes can cause trouble. While in VPS hosting, you still share a server with other sites, but you are allotted dedicated portions of the server’s resources which helps protect your site from everyone else on your server without the cost required for dedicated hosting. On the other hand, dedicated hosting means your personal server, where you don’t have to share resources with anyone else but its maintenance is all your responsibility.
2. Select the right Website CMS or framework
CMS (Content Management System) or Website Framework are two different things, but both are the base platform to run a website. People often confuse between the two which directly affects the website speed as the CMS or framework both load a good amount of code that is required to be processed by the webserver – which inevitably takes some time. If your print store is going to be rich in content then CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Magento, or Drupal would be appropriate and if it is going to be a complex site with good code organization and scaling in the long run; then a Framework like PHP or Laravel would be the best platform.
3. Compress and optimize images
It may sound unbelievable, but images on the website are one of the main reasons for slow page loading. Large images delay loading times and hence you ought to change file format, resize or compress your images to reduce their size without losing any visual quality. You can also try lazy loading your images which means while the user’s browser downloads the images the content of your site will load first, then load all of those photos after.
4. Use the HTTP/2 protocol with the server for serving files
HTTP/2 allows browsers to simultaneously process multiple requests over the same connection, unlike HTTP/1 that can only handle one request at a time per connection. Therefore, using HTTP/2 can significantly improve your site’s load speed.
5. Optimize, minify, prioritize CSS and JS files
The site makes a number of requests every time a user visits which affects the site speed. To reduce that, minify and combine your JS and CSS files. It is necessary to compress them as a new JS or CSS file is added virtually every time a new plugin is installed. Combine them or use CSS sprites to reduce the number of unnecessary requests. Also, keep your CSS as close to the top of your page as possible, as browsers won’t render your page before rendering the CSS file, while your Javascript, as close to the bottom as possible since it prevents browsers from parsing after the tag before it is loaded and complete.
Coming to optimization, you can do it either Synchronously (where scripts load one at a time in the order they appear on the page) or Asynchronously (where it loads simultaneously) but, it is better to use asynchronous and defer loading for your CSS and JavaScript files as it will speed up your pages because when a browser loads a page, it moves from top to bottom. By deferring you can prevent it from loading until after other elements have loaded.
6. Serve files with compression
Remember, the smaller the files, the faster your site will load. Images and content make a site bulky, and hence compression is the key.
7. Enable preload cache and browser cache
Use a cache plugin to minimize the work needed for the server to generate and serve a web page to a visitor’s browser and also, enable browser caching so that the browser can load the page without having to send an HTTP request to the server every time the user visits your site.
Although once your website loads faster and perform well, the clicks and conversions will follow, there are some tricks you can do to achieve that even more and better; like:
For traffic:
Advertise, get social, spice up your content, pay attention to on-page SEO, target long-tail keywords, include guest blogging, examine your analytics, etc.
For conversions
Optimize your paid ads, work upon free shipping, including discount codes, use cart abandonment software, show customers that your site is secure, let customers buy as a guest, simplify site navigation, gather reviews etc.
In a nutshell
Your job is not done after getting a print store developed with all necessary features; the key to success lies in how you are maintaining and running it. If you want to know more about our web-to-print solutions or want us to set up your online printing business, please fill this contact form for a personalized demo. We will be happy to assist you and take your business to the next level.
