Visitors rarely wait for a page that loads slowly, and search engines pay attention to speed as well. The good news is that most slow WordPress sites share a few common causes, and each one has a fix. Here is where to look first. Measure before you change anything Run your key pages through a speed testing tool such as Google PageSpeed Insights and note the results. Test your home page and one or two of your most visited pages. Saving the results lets you check whether each change helped. Resize and compress your images Large images are one of

You do not need a finished brief before you contact a web design agency. A little preparation does help, though. The clearer you are about what you want, the quicker the planning goes and the fewer changes you will need later. Here is what to think about before you reach out. Start with your goals Write down what the website should do for your business. You might want more enquiries, a better way to show your work, or an easier way for customers to find your details. One or two clear goals are enough. Everything else in the project, from

A landing page is a single page built for one purpose, such as getting a quote request, a sign-up or a phone call. Visitors usually arrive from an ad, an email or a search result, so the page has to match what they clicked on. Good landing page design comes down to a handful of choices, listed below. Give the page one goal Decide what you want the visitor to do and build everything around that. If the goal is a quote request, every section should lead toward the form. A page that asks visitors to read the blog, follow

Many business owners treat a website like a printed brochure: build it once and leave it alone. A WordPress website works differently. It runs on software that gets updated regularly, so it needs regular attention to keep working properly. What maintenance covers WordPress core, theme and plugin updates. Updates add new features and fix bugs, and many of them close security gaps. A site running outdated plugins is easier to break or compromise. Updating also needs care, because a new version can sometimes clash with another plugin, so changes should be tested. Backups. A backup is a saved copy of

On-page SEO is the work you do on the pages of your own site so that search engines and visitors can understand them. It will not bring results overnight, but without it, even a well-designed site is harder to find. Use this checklist to go through your pages one by one. Pick one main topic for each page Before you edit anything, decide what each page is about and which search phrase it should target. Give each important page its own phrase. Two pages aiming at the same phrase compete with each other. This is called page mapping, and a

A website that worked well a few years ago can slowly start working against your business. Nothing breaks overnight, so it is easy to miss. If you recognise a few of the signs below, a redesign is worth considering. 1. It looks dated Visitors judge a business by its website before they read a word. Old layouts, small text and clashing colours can make a good company look inactive. A fresh design shows people you are still running and paying attention. 2. It is hard to use on a phone Many visitors will open your site on a phone. If