9 Powerful Ways to Speed up WordPress Websites
TechsPlace | Faster connection speeds and better devices have made modern-day internet users more and more impatient. Chances are that you would not have been reading this article if it took too long to load. Website owners need to factor in these considerations otherwise they cannot get in front of relevant audiences. Google and some other search engines also use the page loading speed as a ranking factor. In this article, we are discussing ways to speed up WordPress websites. The open source CMS is one of the most popular web building platforms in the world. Conducting a few minor tweaks and implementing some best practices will ensure high page loading speed for WordPress users. Let’s see how it can be done.
1. Choose A Dependable Hosting Service Provider
The choice of your hosting service can affect the time required to render your interface in users’ browsers. Some people choose shared plans as they are cheaper. However, this can make their website difficult to access during peak demand. This happens because the server resources are shared by other subscribers. The best way is to opt for a managed WordPress hosting agency. This will ensure that the interface operates from a server which has been optimized specially for the CMS.
2. Update Your Core WordPress Installation
Keeping track of WordPress updates and installing them will be helpful in optimizing your website’s speed. Many users do not give much attention to this important factor. The open source platform regularly releases updates which include bug fixes and new features. Upgrading your core installation will not help improve the loading time but also keep it secure. Website owners must also check for updates related to their installed theme and plugins. This will make your interface faster and less vulnerable.
3. Optimize The WordPress Database
Prolonged use will expand your database with many pieces of information which you do not need. For instance, every time you edit a post, a revision is stored in the installation. This means that a database can bloat with unwanted revisions, trash posts, comments of all kinds, etc. Many people convert website to WordPress theme and are not aware of such details. They must know that the database needs to be decluttered and optimized to keep the website healthy. There are various plugins like WP-Optimize which can be helpful in this purpose.
4. Reduce Server Requests
A request is generated every time a browser needs specific resources from the server. The more the number of requests, the longer it will take to render a page in a browser. Webmasters must aim to reduce the server requests as much as possible. In case, a page contains a very long post, then it will be better to break it into several pages. The number of posts shown on a page must be limited. Instead of displaying full posts on archive pages, it will be better to show only excerpts. Activating lazy loading so that content displays only when the visitor scrolls down to the area will also be helpful.
5. Optimize And Resize All Website Images
Another valuable tip to speed up WordPress interfaces is to optimize and resize all images before uploading them. A picture requires more space than text or CSS. Using image optimization plugins, you can automatically compress all photos before they are uploaded. Compressing and resizing with these solutions ensures that the pictures do not lose their quality in the process.
6. Enable Caching On The Website
Caching is another handy technique to reduce the time taken by a page to load in a browser. When you enable browser caching, then people who visit the page again will be served a cached version. This helps the page to load much faster as compared to a freshly generated page. WordPress users can leverage caching by using plugins built specifically for the purpose. Apart from caching static content, these solutions come with additional features like CDN integration and Gzip compression.
7. Do Not Host Videos On Own Website
No, we are not advising you to shun video content. On the contrary small clips can be helpful in engaging your audience. However, they can also make your interface sluggish. The best way to avoid this issue is by not hosting videos on your own interface. You can host the content on video-sharing networks like YouTube. Then you can embed the content into your website by pasting the relevant link.
8. Use Code Minification To Reduce Bloat
Computers and web browsers do not read code the way humans do. Comments, white space, block-delimiters, etc. in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files make the code more legible for programmers. However, for a machine, all these items are unnecessary which it simply ignores while understanding a program. Moreover, these elements can bloat up the code. The best way is to employ code minification to remove all unwanted items. This will reduce the page size and increase the loading speed. The technique can be easily implemented by using plugins.
9. Use Content Delivery Networks
The physical distance between your website server and a visitor’s browser impact the loading time. This problem can be avoided by using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). A CDN hosts the static files of web pages on multiple servers scattered around the world. Whenever someone requests the page, it is transmitted from a server nearest to the person’s location.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, a lot of new users convert website to WordPress. They do not know about some key characteristics of the open source platform which affect loading time. The information provided in this article will help such users and other website owners in identifying the actions required to improve their website speed.
