1. Choosing the right hosting
The first, basic step to speed up WooCommerce is to choose the right hosting. Hosting is crucial to website performance. There are hosting options available on the market dedicated to WordPress and WooCommerce that are optimized for these platforms. Good servers such as SiteGround, WP Engine or Kinsta offer caching services, which significantly speed up the operation of the store.
2. Image optimization
Images are one of the heaviest elements of a website, so their optimization is crucial for the speed of the store. This can be done manually by reducing the size of images before uploading them to the server, or automatically using a plugin such as Smush or EWWW Image Optimizer.
3. Script minimization and compression
The next step is to minimize and compress CSS and JS scripts. This makes the page load faster because the browser has to process less data. The Autoptimize plugin can help with this by automatically compressing and minimizing your scripts.
4. Cache usage
Using the cache is one of the simplest and most effective methods to speed up WooCommerce. Plugins such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache create static copies of pages, which significantly speeds up their loading.
5. Limit the number of plugins
Another way to speed up WooCommerce is to limit the number of plugins you use. Plugins are very useful, but each of them puts a strain on the server, especially poorly written ones. Therefore, it is worth reviewing the list of plugins and getting rid of those that are not needed.
6. Use of CDN
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of servers located around the world that store copies of your website. Thanks to this, regardless of where the customer visits you, his browser downloads data from the nearest server, which significantly speeds up the operation of the website. One popular CDN provider is Cloudflare.
7. Database optimization
Database review and optimization is the next step in speeding up WooCommerce. This can be done manually, but it is complicated and risky. Fortunately, there are plugins that can do this for us, such as WP-Optimize.
8. Using PHP snippets
Advanced users can also use PHP snippets to speed up WooCommerce. For example, the code below limits the number of products displayed on the store page, which speeds up its loading time:
add_filter( 'loop_shop_per_page', create_function( '$cols', 'return 20;' ), 20 );
This code should be added to the functions.php file in your child theme.
9. WooCommerce Update
Last, but not least, is to keep WooCommerce up to date. The developers are constantly working on optimizing and improving performance, so updating to the latest version can bring significant acceleration.
However, remember to always make a backup of your site before updating, in case there are any problems.
To sum up, speeding up WooCommerce is a process that requires both technical knowledge and awareness of what website elements load the server the most. Choosing a good hosting, optimizing images, minimizing scripts, using cache, limiting plugins, using CDN, optimizing the database, using PHP snippets and keeping WooCommerce in the latest version - all this contributes to better store performance.