How do you tell a visitor your website is “stay worthy”? You deliver impeccable speed, efficient performance, and a matchless user experience to the visitor. The page speed, user-friendly dashboard, and a lightweight theme are some of the main factors that determine a boost in speed for a WordPress website. WordPress holds around 30% of websites running on the internet today. So If your website is slacking behind it’s high time to figure out why your WordPress website is slow and to speed up WordPress performance.
Tips to Speed up WordPress Performance
Ideally, your WordPress website should take no more than three seconds to load completely for the user. Some visitors might even leave before that. To reduce such destructive bounce rates and retain more visitors, your website must qualify for receiving preferential treatment from Google.
A fast-loading WordPress website not only elevates the user’s experiences but also influences its placement in the Google search results. Following are 5 tips to speed up WordPress performance for a better ranking and better functionality.
1. Compress Media and Website Size
The larger your image or video size is, the longer a user’s browser will take to download all these large files to access the website. This can seriously affect your WordPress website page speed for the worst. The solution is, compress all media files by using plugins.
WordPress free image optimization plugins are excellent tools for automatically shrinking image dimensions and optimization respectively. Similarly, GZIP compression can be used to reduce the size of all JavaScript, HTML, or Stylesheet files up to 70% to reduce bandwidth and allow faster loading.
2. Get Rid of Inactive Plugins
Check and verify if all the current plugins on your WordPress website are working. Installing too many plugins can cause the website to lag and load slower than it should.
Many plugins stop working properly with time or you just forget you have them there. Removing WordPress plugins can speed up the performance. To test how your plugins are influencing the website’s performance, get another plugin (e.g. Query Monitor) to address if a plugin is slowing your site down. You can then find an alternative or remove it altogether.
3. Use a CDN
Content Delivery Network (CDN) can play an important role in speeding up your WordPress website’s performance by delivering requested content anywhere across the globe. This prompt delivery is courtesy of a geographically distributed network of servers that keep copies of your website cached for availability at all hours.
The geographical distance between the visitor and the main server can increase loading time. A CDN in place brings all the static website files (JavaScript, images, CSS, etc.) nearest to the visitor for quick downloading and access.
4. Deflate Themes and Cache it up!
Choose your WordPress website’s theme keeping speed and convenience in mind. A feature-studded website not only appears to be just “too much” to the onlookers but also takes a longer time to load completely. Eliminate any unnecessary sidebars, sliders, and fancy widgets to reduce the web page’s size. A small file size downloads quicker in the visitor’s browser than a larger one. Make sure you keep WordPress updated for newer and faster themes.
Next, you need a caching plugin for your website which will make copies of your site’s pages once accessed and store them in the user’s browser memory. This way a previously generated page will be retrieved quicker the next time they are requested.
Caching plugins automatically refresh and update the cached copy if a certain page is changed or updated. This makes your website more resource-friendly. WordPress plugins like W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, and WP Rocket are highly efficient to speed up your website.
5. Get a High-Quality Host
A poorly optimized hosting service slows loading speeds, causes frequent downtime, or might completely give up on you amidst a heavy traffic load. For many new website owners, a shared web hosting plan seems the most affordable option. But in actuality, a server that is hosting hundreds of websites at once won’t be able to cater to increased activity for a certain site.
This results in suspensions, errors, and overall slow websites. Hence, get yourself a dedicated, quality hosting service provider to ensure your WordPress website is always up and running for the users.
Final Thoughts: 5 Tips to Speed up WordPress Performance
There you have it, all 5 tips to speed up WordPress performance for 2024. For further suggestions, take a look at the articles 4 Ways Effective Web Design Can Benefit Your SEO Strategy, How Neglecting Website Maintenance Will Cost You, and 7 Tips for a WordPress Website Audit.
Thank you, I’ve recently been searching for information about this subject for a long time and yours is the best I have found out so far.
Excellent tips! Redirects have some uses, but unnecessary redirects, such as 301 redirects & redirect chains, can really slow things down. It’s best to reduce the amount of additional information requests that your server undertakes.
Thank you for sharing your blog, seems to be useful information can’t wait to dig deep!