Last year we introduced the Cloudways WordPress Performance contest in which participants were given the challenge to optimize an unoptimized WooCommerce store. The contest received a lot of attention and more than 122 contestants participated. The winners of the contest held a permanent position on our Leaderboard.
After the success of the last year’s contest; I’m excited to announce the Cloudways WordPress Performance Contest 2021. WordPress is being used by thousands and this number is increasing day after day. The aim of this contest is to engage the experts of the WordPress community in a productive challenge of improving the performance of a WordPress site and to set new benchmarks for website speed optimization.
This will not only help the existing WordPressers in improving the performance of their WordPress site but will also become a deciding factor for many to choose WordPress for their next web project.
Let’s begin with contest details.
Contest Details
Interested participants are required to submit their entries through a form shared in this post and on several social media channels. We advise you to fill out the form and submit it before 20/05/2021. These forms will be evaluated and only the shortlisted participants will be contacted for the contest.
Selected contestants will get the credentials for their un-optimized WooCommerce store which they need to fix and optimize for performance. Each contestant will get the same copy of an un-optimized version of the WordPress site hosted on a server on the Cloudways platform which he/she needs to optimize within the time specified.
Each contestant will be allowed to work on their WordPress website for a period of 5 days and at the end of the fifth day, they are required to submit an evaluation form. Submitting this form is mandatory and failure to do so can lead to disqualification.
Specification of the WooCommerce Store
- Built with WooCommerce 4.0
- Running on PHP 7.2
- MySQL 5.6
- HTTP/2 Enabled
- PHP FPM Running
- Products added using Alidropship Woo plugin.
Note: The final specifications may vary and will be shared with the participating contestants beforehand.
Eligibility Criteria
Anybody can participate in this contest. There is no minimum expertise required to participate in this contest. In fact, we encourage everybody who uses WordPress whether for development, blogging, eCommerce, and agencies to participate in this contest.
However, it would be useful if you have prior knowledge of the below topics.
- Self-hosted WordPress.
- WordPress structure like its versions, plugins, and themes.
- Updating core files, plugins, and themes.
- Troubleshooting common WordPress errors.
- Image optimization.
- Use of caching and a basic understanding of site performance.
- Basic understanding of using website speed test tools.
Are you ready for the challenge?
Register yourself for the contest by filling out the entry form.
Contest Rules
- No entry will be entertained except through the official sign up form.
- Only the shortlisted participants will be contacted.
- Cloudways reserves the right to disqualify any participant and is not liable to give any kind of justification.
- Contestants can seek help but they need to explain precisely what and how they did to achieve their final score.
- Contestants can not change or alter theme’s files or remove existing plugins. However, plugins can be deactivated and new plugins can be added as a replacement to keep the features intact.
- Contestants cannot remove the number of products and the images of each product.
- The contest will run for five days and by the end of the fifth day, the evaluation form needs to be filled by each contestant and submit it.
- The contestants who failed to fill the evaluation form on the given deadline might get disqualified.
Cheat Sheet
- 13 Tips to Speed Up WordPress Site
- WordPress Lazy Load To Speed Up a Web Page
- Speed Test Tools To Optimize Website Performance
- Guide to Speed Up WooCommerce Store
- The Best WordPress Performance Plugins
- Must-Have WooCommerce Plugins
- WordPress Database Optimization Guide
- Use Memcached to Reduce Database Load
- Browser Caching To Optimize Page Load Time
- 8 Tips To Reduce Server Response Time
- Leverage Elasticsearch to Optimize Searching in WooCommerce
- Ultimate WordPress CDN Guide
- 10 Best WordPress Caching Plugins
- How to Use W3 Total Cache Plugin
- Optimize WordPress Images Using WP Compress
Prizes for the Winners!
All the evaluation forms will be evaluated and the results will be verified before announcing the top three winners of the contest. These results will be announced on this blog post, on official social media channels and will be conveyed to the winners via their emails.
First Prize
Amazon gift card worth $500.
Second Prize
Amazon gift card worth $300.
Third Prize
Amazon gift card worth $100.
All three winners will also receive the Cloudways Digital Certificate and an evergreen mention on our Leaderboard!
All participants will receive $25 worth of hosting credit.
Leaderboard
The Leaderboard was designed to last year for contest winners. Winners of Cloudways WordPress Performance Contest 2021 will be placed on this leaderboard so they can brag about their winning – forever!
Ibad Ur Rehman
Ibad Ur Rehman is a WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways. He likes to explore the latest open-source technologies and to interact with different communities. In his free time, he likes to read, watch a series or fly his favorite Cessna 172SP in X Plane 11 flight simulator.
