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Pro Tips to Speed Up WooCommerce Store in 2020

Moeez — January 25, 2020 5 Minutes Read
speed up woocommerce

Disclaimer: WPblog is a part of Cloudways, a Managed Cloud Hosting service, but any assumptions or analysis made on this property belong solely to their writers.

Starting a WooCommerce store is quite simple – just purchase a domain, get the hosting, and add the WooCommerce plugin to the WordPress website and your store is ready for business. This is one of the reasons why WooCommerce is often preferred over Shopify and other ecommerce platforms.

However, in order to be successful and drive more sales, a store has to be fast and offer a great experience to the visitors. Store performance is the single most important factor that determines the success or failure of the business.

In this article, I will discuss several ways to speed up your WooCommerce site. In order to turn a profit, WooCommerce stores should make sure that the store remains optimized at all times.

1. Increase WordPress Memory Limit

Once the store is live, the first thing you need to do is to go to wp-config.php, located in the WordPress root folder. At the very end of the file, right after the line that says, “Happy Blogging”, add the following line:

define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’);

Edit the PHP.ini file

If you have access to the php.ini file, edit the maximum allowed memory limit. For instance, if the line shows 64M, change it to 256M.

memory_limit = 256M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)

Edit .htaccess file

If you couldn’t access php.ini, access the .htaccess file and paste the following code in it:

php_value memory_limit 256M

This is one of the most effective WooCommerce speed optimization techniques.

Also Read: How to Increase WordPress Maximum Upload File Size Limit

2. Optimize Images To Speed Up WooCommerce

In this age of visual marketing, images from the core of the design of ecommerce stores. However, many store owners make the mistake of using unoptimized images that severely impact the performance of the store and is one of the most effective ways to speed up WooCommerce sites.

Large image files slow down the UX of an online store. In addition, the slow page load speed (a direct result of using huge image files) means that search engines downrank the store in SERP.

To deal with this situation, a good practice is to reduce the size of the images through best Image compression plugins such as WP-Smush.it, EWWW Image Optimizer or Hammy. These plugins reduce the size of the images & optimize images on WordPress without compromising the quality of the images and play a big role in WooCommerce speed optimization.

speed up WooCommerce tips

3. Use a Cache Plugin

Caching basically allows you to speed up WooCommerce site by storing a copy of the resources of the store. This way, the visitors experience fast page load speed because the WooCommerce doesn’t waste time by getting the resources (CSS, JS and other files). Instead, it serves the caches version directly to the visitor. As a result, static pages are rendered almost instantaneously while dynamic pages take less time to display the content to the visitors.

WordPress offers a great selection of best wordpress cache plugin such as Breeze, W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin, WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, Swift cache plugin etc. Of these, I prefer Breeze WordPress Cache plugin because of its simple and easy operation.

Caching process detailed image

4. Use Varnish Cache

Varnish cache allows WooCommerce stores to speed up user experience by storing a copy of all the resources of the store. In response to the visitor’s request, the cache serves the stores data. The good news is that Varnish compatible WooCommerce hosting such as Cloudways allows you to launch Varnish compatible WooCommerce stores on top of reliable cloud infrastructure providers.

Varnish Cache plugin

5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN service speeds up your store load speed by serving cached static content from servers located near the users’ geographic location. Popular CDN options include MaxCDN, Sucuri, Cloudflare, StackPath, KeyCDN,Cloudways CDN, etc.

Content Delivery Network CDN diagram

Speeding up your ecommerce store should be on the top of your priority list. The tactics I have mentioned in this article will have you improve load times on your online store that will enhance user experience and improve WooCommerce speed optimization. If I have missed out on anything, let me know in the comments.

6. Get a Faster WordPress Hosting Provider

It’s common knowledge that a fast and reliable WordPress hosting improves your site speed dramatically. A WooCommerce store needs a hosting provider that offers maximum uptime without any interruptions. What makes a fast hosting even more important for an ecommerce store is the fact that there are multiple traffic spikes based on deals, offers and different seasons. You would want your hosting provider to handle the sudden spike and not impact the load time of your WooCommerce store.

Check out our cloud hosting comparison between DigitalOcean Vs Linode Vs Vultr before choosing a new one.

also, Cloudways is one such managed WordPress hosting provider that helps you load your WooCommerce store in blazing fast speed. Check out how Cloudways loads a website in just 79ms!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. How to Make Your Website Load Faster?

  1. Install a CDN
  2. Compress your images
  3. Install a cache plugin
  4. Delete plugins that are no longer in use
  5. Implement lazy loading
  6. Get a reputable hosting provider

Q2. Why Speed is Important for your WordPress Site?

A slower website will increase your bounce rate. Since it will take time to load your content, your visitor might just leave your website rather than waiting. High load time also decreases your avg session duration which might directly affect your conversions and revenue.

Slow website also has a negative impact on your user experience. A poor user experience can lead to loss of visitors and customers. Also, it will affect your SEO and you will notice a drop in your SERPs.

Q3. How to Check Your WordPress Website Speed?

There are many reliable tools out there through which you can check your WordPress website speed. Most popular ones include:

  1. Pingdom
  2. Google Page Speed Insight
  3. YSlow
  4. GTMetrix
  5. WebPage Test

Q4. What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?

  1. Using cheap hosting
  2. Using too many plugins
  3. No caching
  4. Images not compressed
  5. Not using a CDN

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      Moeez is ‘The’ blogger in charge of WPblog. He loves to interact and learn about WordPress with people in the WordPress community. Outside his work life, Moeez spends time hanging out with his friends, playing Xbox and watching football on the weekends. You can get in touch with him at moeez[at]wpblog.com.

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