Page speed is a ranking criteria for search engines such as Google since it influences the overall user experience. The WordPress website provides a variety of tools and features that affect page performance. We’ll show you how to use such features to speed up WordPress .
Improving the loading time of a website can help:
Improve your search engine ranks
Reduce the bounce rate.
Increase your conversions.
This tutorial will reveal 10 concrete techniques for drastically increasing the speed of your WordPress site. With experienced insights, you will learn useful tips and have a deeper understanding of WordPress performance optimization.
1.Choose an appropriate hosting plan for your WordPress website.
Web hosting providers and plans have a significant impact on site speed. As a result, determining your website’s requirements is critical for selecting the best web hosting.
Consider the following aspects when selecting a web hosting service to upload or move a WordPress website:
Fast web server:
A fast web server affects the loading speed of all websites hosted by the hosting company. Hostinger, for example, employs LiteSpeed Web Servers (LSWS) as its primary web server, which has a sophisticated caching engine. LiteSpeed caches compressed cache files instead of creating a new request every time, increasing your WordPress page speed.
Include WordPress elements:
In WordPress website Include WordPress element to aid in the acceleration of WordPress websites. For example, Hostinger installs the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for all WordPress users automatically.
Reliable customer support:
Reliable customer support assures that your website will not be slowed down. Furthermore, responsive customer service is required to resolve any difficulties as soon as possible, such as outage or delayed loading time.
After you’ve decided on a hosting company, it’s time to choose the best package for your WordPress website. In general, hosting companies provide several types of WordPress hosting:
Hosting that is shared:
An entry-level hosting service that allows several websites to share the same server’s resources. Hostinger’s web hosting packages begin at $1.99 per month.
Cloud computing:
A high-end hosting service that provides dedicated resources from a network of many servers. It’s just as easy to use as shared hosting. Hostinger’s cloud hosting options begin at $9.99 per month.
Hosting for virtual private servers (VPS):
A hosting service that provides users with root access and dedicated resources. It takes considerable technical knowledge to set up and maintain. VPS hosting from Hostinger starts at $5.99 per month.
WordPress hosting:
In WordPress website WordPress hosting is available. A sort of shared hosting that is specifically intended for WordPress performance and security. Check out the table below for a thorough summary of Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plans, including pricing and allocated hosting server resources:
2.Optimize your images: a quick tweak to make your pages load faster.
Images are essential for the aesthetics of a WordPress website. They’re one of the most effective ways to draw attention, showcase a product, or elicit a specific emotion.
Large photos, on the other hand, can dramatically increase the size of a page, slowing down the loading time. In fact, graphics accounted for almost 45% of the entire page size on average.
Here are some picture optimization suggestions for WordPress websites:
Make sure the file is 500 KB or less in size. Check the file size of any image before uploading it. Images greater than 500 KB generally load substantially slower. To compress images, use a tool like TinyPNG.
Use the file format that is recommended. Different image formats employ various file compression algorithms. As a result, some file formats are better suited to specific applications than others. Here are some of the most prevalent image file types and their applications:
JPEG
– Lossy compression, which means the image loses some information in order to be smaller. Progressive JPEGs can improve website performance and user experience.
PNG
– utilizes lossless compression to keep all of the information in a picture, assuring the highest resolution. Graphics and drawings should be saved in PNG format.
WebP
is a popular file format because it combines lossy and lossless compression. You can provide a high-resolution image that is smaller than a JPEG or PNG file by using WebP.
Load photos slowly
Images on a page will load on demand when WordPress lazy loading is enabled. This strategy increases site speed because the WordPress website does not have to load all of the photos at the same time and only when the user scrolls down to view them.
For a quick and easy image solution, we propose using a WordPress plugin for performance optimization like WP Smush. WP Smush is a WordPress plugin that allows you to compress and resize images in your WordPress media library in bulk, and it also supports lazy loading.
Furthermore, the Pro edition of WP Smush allows you to convert pictures to WebP.
3.Make use of a content delivery network.
It’s ideal for a global WordPress website with target viewers scattered over the world. A CDN reduces latency and increases the speed of your WordPress pages by shortening the distance between the user and the server.
A CDN operates by caching copies of a website’s static content. When a visitor accesses the website, the content is loaded from the server closest to them, decreasing the amount of external HTTP requests.
WordPress works well with a variety of CDN providers. Some hosting companies include CDNs in their plans.
4.Make advantage of a lightweight theme.
When choosing a theme for your WordPress website, pay careful attention to performance optimization. Some gorgeous and impressive-looking themes are really badly coded and can significantly slow down your site.
A simpler theme is usually preferable than one that is bloated with intricate layouts, flashy animations, and other unneeded elements. You may always add those features with the help of reputable WordPress plugins.
Premium WordPress theme vendors such as Studio-press, Themify, CSSIgniter, and Astra provide well-coded and speed-optimized themes. You can also get tips on what to search for in our post on choosing the best WordPress theme.
5.Upgrade your PHP to the latest version.
WordPress is developed with the PHP programming language. Outdated PHP versions can cause your website to slow down, so make sure you’re using the most recent version. The Version Info plugin can tell you what version of PHP is running on your site.
PHP 7 is the most recent version of PHP and is recommended for optimizing WordPress loading speed. If you’re not sure how to update your PHP version, a freelance performance optimization specialist may walk you through the steps to ensure everything goes as planned. They can also check that you’re running the most recent WordPress version, which is critical for website performance.
6.Do not directly upload videos to WordPress website.
Along with photographs, videos allow you to communicate with your audience, providing you with another medium to connect with them and promote your services.
However, unlike photographs, videos cannot be uploaded to WordPress. This is due to the fact that video sizes are large and can take an eternity to stream to the client’s PC. It can also significantly slow down web pages, thus hurting user experience.
To avoid this happening to you, try uploading your film to Vimeo or YouTube. Once uploaded, you may use the embed code to add the video to your website.
7.UPDATE your WordPress version is an easy fix:
It is simple to update your WordPress version.
Advice that has stood the test of time! But because it works, we can’t leave it out. Simply updating your WordPress website to a newer version can provide a significant speed increase. You get the most recent performance enhancements as well as numerous other optimizations.
WordPress 6.1, for example, received a slew of performance enhancements beneath the hood, including improved database efficiency and media delivery management. This results in a speedier load time for both new and returning visitors.
Furthermore, switching to a new WordPress version allows you to run a newer version of PHP, which provides even greater performance benefits.
8.Install a caching solution in WordPress website.
Caching is a crucial component of performance. It’s a simple approach that will help your WordPress website load faster, especially for returning users.
The process of storing frequently accessed data in a temporary storage location is referred to as caching. Instead of retrieving data from the server each time it is requested, it can be promptly downloaded from the cache as needed.
This reduces the amount of data that must be sent between the server and the browser of your visitors, resulting in faster page load times and improved overall website performance.
So, if a visitor accesses a recently-viewed page, the page is delivered from the cache rather than having to request all of the parts such as HTML and graphics from separate databases.
You can use caching plugins to automate the process. However, be cautious while installing several caching or optimization plugins. They can obstruct each other and slow down your site!
Some of our caching plugin recommendations in WordPress website:
WP Rocket
– Extremely strong and one of the greatest alternatives for speeding up your site. Designed to be straightforward. There is no free option.
W3 Total Cache – Extremely powerful and adaptable. Designed to be all-inclusive. There are hundreds of checkboxes and options.
NitroPack
combines full-page caching with cutting-edge performance optimization algorithms. There are plenty great bells and whistles, but the cost model scales with pageviews.
WP-Optimize
– A good compromise, including basic full-page caching and more advanced database and media optimization options.
WP Super Cache
– A straightforward solution that provides complete page caching but lacks other/advanced optimization strategies.
These plugin recommendations are generated from our post on the best WordPress plugins. Check out that page for a lot of great tools to help you develop a better WordPress website!
9.Unused plugins should be deactivated and removed in WordPress website.
WordPress is a fantastic platform because of its plugins and widgets, which allow you to enhance a website in a variety of ways. However, it can be tempting to install a plugin for every minor capability that you require.
Although plugins can make your life easier, utilizing too many of them can have a negative impact on your performance. Because there are more features to load, your page will load slower.
Examine your plugin library and determine which ones you require and which you do not. Instead than employing a plugin for every minor function, utilize more versatile ones that can handle many tasks.
Don’t forget to deactivate and delete the ones you don’t need from your site. This will eliminate the extra codes they add to your website. This is a simple change that some may overlook. Furthermore, unused plugins might interfere with other plugins, themes, and core WordPress functioning. By deleting them, you lessen the possibility of compatibility issues, which might improve your site’s stability and performance.
10.File size should be reduced in WordPress website.
You can compress your photographs to lower their file size, as we mentioned. You can also do this with your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
Although the number of bytes and kilobytes you removed from these files may not appear to be significant, they can add up. Reduce the superfluous spacing or lines in your code to reduce file size. You may also merge numerous files into a single file, compress it, and deliver it without affecting your site.
Tampering with codes is never a good idea, especially if you are not a coder. But, happily, we have plugins to assist us. You can look at:
utoptimize, a sophisticated JavaScript, CSS, and HTML optimization tool.
WP Minify may also merge and compress JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files.
