Did you know that over half of website users abandon websites if they do not load up in less than three seconds? If you are running an online store through a platform like WooCommerce, this can eat into your profits as people do not stick around long enough to make a purchase. Lucky for you, there are ways to ensure people do not leave so your website reputation does not start to suffer.
This article will help you understand what you can do to give your WooCommerce website the best chance of success in acquiring quality website visits and converting them into paying customers. Read on to learn more!
1. Downtime
If you go to a website that does not appear to be online, do you keep trying the site until it returns or take your business elsewhere? Also, if you knew the online store was there the last time you visited but appears to be offline now, is your trust in their ability to provide you services is going to reduce?
Put plainly; unplanned website downtime is completely unacceptable! It results in a loss of revenue, a loss of customers, and a stain on your e-commerce site’s reputation.
How to Solve It
While there are a few exceptions, website downtime is almost always connected to your server or hosting provider issues. Investigate issues such as server failures, hackers breaching your servers, or too much traffic. Each of these could lead to you discovering a previously unknown weakness in your system.
Another thing you can do to alleviate downtime is to partner with a reputable managed hosting provider for WooCommerce stores, as well as a 100% uptime guarantee. Hosting plans designed for WooCommerce often include extra storage, bandwidth, and monthly visitors – things you will definitely find helpful as your online store grows. Plus, if there ever is an issue with your WooCommerce store, the hosting provider has 24/7 WordPress hosting support available at all times of the day and night to provide expert assistance and get you back online quickly.
2. Slow Website Speed
Customers hate slow experiences. It does not matter if it is slow service at a coffee shop, slow queues at the DMV, or a slow website on their computer.
As stated at the top of this article, every second your website takes to load causes you to lose customers. After three seconds, a user is more likely to return from where they came from than remain on your site.
How to Solve It
There are several ways to improve the speed at which a website loads. You could use any number of them to help you reach people faster:
Image optimization: Serving complex images in WordPress can sometimes be the thing taking up the most bandwidth. This slows your site down as the user must wait for them to load in, and they are not always the most crucial information onscreen.
Lucky for you, you can run your image through an image optimization application like Jetpack Security. Image optimization will reduce their general size without decreasing quality to a noticeable level. This usually involves making the image smaller and running it through a compression algorithm to reduce the file size.
Use a CDN: A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of servers that provide fast delivery of website content to users around the globe. Put plainly, a CDN transfers the data needed for a website to load (such as images, videos, javascript files, etc.) from a server located closest to the user. That said, a Guide to CDN it caches and distributes it efficiently for faster website performance. Most reputable hosting providers usually provide a CDN as part of their services.
Do not use redirects: Redirects are when a user travels to one website page, only for you to pass them on to another based on any number of factors. Each time you redirect them, it can add one or more seconds to the time it takes them to get to where they want to end up. Try to reduce these as much as you can to avoid a user getting frustrated with the time it takes them to get where they want to go. Here you can learn the right way to set up redirect in WordPress properly.
3. Improve Your UX
Many people still have to ask the question, “What is UX?”
UX, or user experience, is how easy it is for people to use your website or product. If your site has made it difficult for people to find information or not work with specific devices, the user will have a bad experience.
Bad UX can affect your business as it will make your efforts appear amateur and drive people away from your website in frustration. You can improve your UX to make people enjoy engaging with your brand and promote positive encounters.
How to Solve It
Much like poor performance or reliability, UX can harm a person’s opinion of your site. User experience is a BIG topic and difficult to address in just a few sentences. However, we have multiple articles and resources you can use to optimize your site’s UX. Here are some examples:
- How to Optimize Your WordPress Site for Mobile Devices
- Tips for Building a Great Mobile Experience for a WooCommerce Website
- Crafting Amazing WordPress Experiences
- Top 10 Beginner Tips For Building A WordPress Website
- Using Performance Testing Tools to Improve Your Website
- 10 WordPress Customization Tips You May Not Know About
- 7 Most Common WordPress Developer Mistakes
4. Missing Content
When using a website, it can be very distracting to be clicking around, only to find a missing page or an image that will not load. This can appear to the user as though creators have not paid enough care to the site and can affect its reputation if not remedied.
Missing content sometimes occurs due to poor planning and technical issues. Other times, it is a case that the site is old enough to have changed how it accesses different parts of itself, and not everything may have caught up.
How to Solve It
The first thing you should check is whether the site’s HTML links are being pointed at the correct locations. After all, there is no point linking to something that does not exist where you think it does.
Once you have checked this, investigate the CSS and Javascript of the site for the same issues. These may have problems as they become outdated or broken by version updates, so it is worth ensuring they remain relevant.
Finally, someone may have done something as mundane as deleted the source image or web page. Check that it still exists where it should be, and if not, you will need to either find the item in an archive or remake it to resolve the issue.
5. Bad SEO
If someone has tried to search for your website and not found it, you have bad SEO. This inability to appear as a priority to Google means that your customers will not consider you relevant or professional.
On top of this, why have a website if people who have not already heard of you cannot find it? Your site is one of your primary advertisements out there, so SEO is paramount.
How to Solve It
One of the best options is to do a complete website audit to improve your website’s SEO.
SEO is a reflection of the content you have, so the first thing you will need is regular and on-topic content. This will give you relevance and shows you update your site. One of the most popular ways to do this is to write a blog yourself or pay someone else to do it regularly.
Another thing to do is to focus on your user experience. Things like too many popups or adverts can harm your SEO, so make sure you keep them to a minimum.
Finally, make sure your website is well laid out. Use H1 headers to keep your site well-designed and let Google’s system understand what your site is about.
If you’d like to read more about SEO, we recommend the following articles:
- Getting the Most Out of Yoast
- How to Use Keyword Mapping to Improve SEO
- Website Hosting and SEO: What’s the Connection (and Why It’s Important)
- How to Boost Your WordPress SEO
- 10 WooCommerce SEO Tips to Boost Your Rankings
Making Your WooCommerce Store Successful
You should now have a better idea of how to improve the reputation of your WooCommerce store. If you still have questions, check out our blog to dig into topics ranging from choosing a hosting provider and optimizing your site for mobile traffic to writing compelling website content and using social media to set your website up for success.
Amanda Tsourakis
With over a decade of experience in the tech industry, Amanda's experience demonstrates her sales expertise. Her commitment to building, training, and guiding high-performing teams has been instrumental in driving Pressable's success. Amanda's extensive background in sales and marketing, coupled with her sharp business acumen, has made her an invaluable asset to the tech community. Her ability to identify and foster talent, combined with her passion for developing winning sales strategies, has propelled her to the forefront of the industry. When she's not expertly navigating the tech sales landscape, she loves spending quality time with her family, loves travel and adventure, lounging pool/beach-side, playing tennis, working out, and meeting people/making friends all along the way!
