Build a Super Fast eCommerce Store with WooCommerce

Building a WooCommerce store is easy but building a performance-focused eCommerce store that loads in seconds is hard. That is exactly what we are going to tell in this article.

Here is the complete step-by-step process for building a speed-focused WooCommerce store.

1. Install WordPress and WooCommerce

First of all, install WordPress and WooCommerce on your website. You can add WordPress through cPanel. In most web hosting solutions, you will get WordPress installed by default on your website.

Once the WordPress setup is complete, simply add the WooCommerce plugin to the store. The process is pretty seamless and anyone can easily start it.

Adding WooCommerce to your store is pretty easy. Go to Plugins > Add New > Search for ‘WooCommerce’ from the search menu and you will have the extension available. Click on Install to install it on your system.

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2. Set up WooCommerce Store

You can install the WooCommerce plugin directly on your website. It is completely free of charge and offers a payment gateway as well. No need to install any other third-party plugins to calculate taxes, shipping rates, or start payments on the store as that will be automatically done by the WooCommerce plugin itself.

You will be able to select each and everything that you will install on your store from the WooCommerce page setup and configuration menu.

3. Test Store Speed

Now that your WooCommerce setup is complete, it is time to test your website store speed. Use tools like Pingdom, GTMetrix, or even Google Page Speed Insights to check that everything on the store is working perfectly.

If the speed is not fast at this time, you can improve it later using the methods we will provide below. The purpose of testing store performance is just to check what issues are causing slow speed.

GTMetrix tests for Core Web Vitals. These are crucial speed metrics used by Google to measure the performance scores of a website. Websites with better performance scores get to rank higher in search engines.

4. Add Cache Services

If you are not already using a server-level cache on your hosting server, ask the administrators to add that. Most servers have Nginx or Memcached that increase the overall server performance. You can also use any other cache service that you think will work best.

Once you have the cache service added to your profile, the next step is to add a cache service for your WordPress store.

Multiple cache services are available in the market. You can either use Apache performance stack or Litespeed cache service for the back-end.

WordPress also offers numerous cache services for free to its users. You can choose from WP Rocket, WP Total Cache, NitroPack and various other WooCommerce products.

5. Optimize Site Content and Assets

Now you have to optimize the content and assets available on your WooCommerce store. If the image size of your WooCommerce store is above 200kbs, it will take a lot of time for these images to load.

You can use image optimization tools like WPSmush, Optimal, and Imagify to improve the performance of your eCommerce store.

Now you have to test the performance of your WooCommerce store again.

The best part about WooCommerce is that you can easily bulk optimize images on your website. This can literally save you in bandwidth and storage space.

6. Test Site Speed Again

Since you have already optimized the performance of your WooCommerce store, it is time to test the performance again to see if there is any change in the site page loading time.

In most cases, if you have a decent website with all relevant plugins installed and working, the speed of the website will get a significant boost.

Pingdom is also a great tool for testing website performance. But this is not free and you will only have limited testing options available in the freemium version offered by Pingdom.

The same is the case with GTMetrix and Website Speed Test org.

7. Add CDN and SSL

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)ensures secured connections between both the parties i.e. client and server. They ensure that the information is not sniffed by any sniffer or eavesdropper.

Similarly, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures that the website is available on the edge servers. Anyone that is looking for the website will get its content from the nearest location available to them. What this means is Reduced page loading time, increased visibility. As a result, the website will automatically increase in search rankings and get more orders.

Basic CDN services are free like Cloudflare. However, premium services that have Stackpath usually have a fee attached to them. These premium services also have multiple servers that you can choose from for your website hosting and content delivery.

8. Launch Your eCommerce Store

Now that you have tested your WooCommerce store, it is time to make it public. How will you make it public? Create a proper promotion and marketing plan.

First, make sure that all the products on your eCommerce store are optimized properly. You should also have a proper marketing strategy in place so that you can grow and scale your business when it is launched.

Key Takeaways:

Once the store is launched, here is what you need to look at:

• Website performance should be at an optimal level always
• Security is crucial when it comes to WooCommerce stores. Make sure you are fully secure
• Product images make or break your store, make them expressive, attractive, and convertible.
• Engaging and clear product descriptions should be your number one priority to rank the store higher and allow it to get more visibility.
• Focus on channels that will bring in the revenue. This could be paid mediums, free mediums, organic mediums, or even referrals.

Is Speed Crucial for WooCommerce Websites?

Yes! Speed is a crucial factor for not only business websites but also eCommerce stores. From 2020, when Google made page speed a part of the search ranking algorithm, the need for better performance has risen incredibly.

That makes it all the more important to launch a performance-oriented eCommerce store,

Ready to Launch Your WooCommerce store?

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