In its nearly twenty years of existence, WordPress evolved into one of the most popular web hosting and website creation services. Part of its success comes from its beginning as a so-called blogging platform. And indeed, many famous bloggers started with WordPress accounts. As we’ve all experienced over the last two decades, the internet is a universe with much more than blogging.
WordPress has a large ecosystem of plugins, themes, and services that help people run websites. This ecosystem has everything you need to run, customize, and optimize websites. At the time of writing, there are around 8,000 themes and 58,000 plugins available.
The WordPress Marketplace has plugins that are free and also premium plugins that can be costly depending on the customization offered. With Google’s dominance of the web analytics market, WordPress has an opportunity to eat into that market share. To this end, WordPress has a developer community of people that creates and improves plugins. Part of this includes developing plugins that improve website performance, a task Google has down to a science.
Astonishingly, WordPress has an estimated 64.8% market share placing it as a significant player in the website specialization market. To accommodate this dominance, WordPress focused on presenting tools that help its users with e-commerce needs. An early result is a Performance Lab plugin that could rival Google’s hold on the web analytics market.
WordPress Performance Lab
In the fall of 2021, WordPress announced the kickoff of a Performance Team. The team’s first deliverable is the Performance Lab, meant to one day be available in the WordPress Marketplace. The goal is to speed up the internal working of WordPress’ core functions to give users better internet experiences. The latest deliverable from the Team is the Performance Lab plugin, giving users the power of data analytics inside their WordPress Dashboards.
WordPress will make the plugin modular, meaning users can pick which modules they want to plug into their websites. The plugin modules included are listed below.
WebP Uploads and WebP Support
This new format for converting jpegs to the new WebP format brings greater control of network protocols. The WebP Uploads plugin module converts the files while the WebP Support module examines the network to see if it is compatible with the new format. If not, the module shows a warning if there is an issue.
Persistent Object Cache Health Check
Object caching stores some data locally, so the server doesn’t need to take requests for data. This plugin module checks for object cache issues from the perspective of site performance. The faster a site loads, the better the user experience.
From an online marketing perspective, this module helps with site performance. This also leads to increased web traffic and PPC. These are the specific details the experts at Web Rocket Media will use to help your WordPress website perform at its best.
Audit Enqueued Assets (experimental)
Unnecessary CSS and JavaScript files can drastically decrease website performance. In the worst-case scenarios, these leftover files could lead to malware. This experimental module audits these files for potential issues that slow down website performance.
WordPress is Tapping Into the Developer Community
WordPress notes the experimental label comes from the fact that WordPress will improve the module’s performance in the coming weeks and months. It has plans for the performance lab plugin to be part of its core offering, bringing better tools for improving website performance. For example, the module doesn’t yet tell users which CSS and JavaScript files influence website performance at a given time.
WordPress marketplace upgrades are necessary to compete with modern web surfing trends. By releasing performance plugins in the experimental stage, those that manage WordPress websites have the opportunity to provide feedback that improves the plugins. Unpacking ways to improve website performance is the only way to compete in today’s website-rich internet.
In Closing
The WordPress Marketplace has thousands of plugins that help websites do what they were intended to do–attract visitors. To compete with other website analytics tools, WordPress developed plugins that help improve website performance.
If your WordPress website is running slow and you need to enhance your advertising profile, give Web Rocket Media a call. They’ll audit your WordPress website and suggest ways to improve its performance.
If you want integrated content-producing services, call for a discussion. The experts at Web Rocket Media will give your WordPress website a boost. Call today to feel the Rocket Power!