Once, it was not so much essential to speed up a website on WordPress as today. Because the user is impatient and in a hurry to search the information on the sites with the fast loading speed, in this way, the user will enjoy and love to stay. Perhaps, the user will again come back.
If the site loads slowly, the user will turn to the next website leaving a wrong impression. Moreover, Google ranking will dropdown. Therefore, to keep the user happy and site ranking at the top, the speed of the WordPress website needs attention.
It is quite a simple task, and taking initial steps will not only boost the speed but also the performance of the site.
This article will help you through the simple things to do this.
Table of Contents
Why Should You Speed Up A WordPress Website?
The reasons are many to do this, but majorly that can cause significant issues are:
It is for the proper working of the website with WordPress. If it will not so, then it will affect the site’s performance, making it challenging to handle.
Google algorithm also includes the site’s speed as a ranking factor, which means it will affect the site position in the SERPs. Only those websites ranked that have better page loading speed. So, to rank the site in the search engine, you should speed up the website.
The visitors do not like to search the slow loading sites. If the web page speed is slow, then they move to another one with a fast pace and never come again to the same page. As a result, the site’s visitors decreases. The bounce rate also increases.
One study results show that 47 percent of visitors only wait for two seconds or less to load the page. The speed higher than this results in to leave the web page. Therefore, to stay them on the site, you should make the loading faster.
Why Speed Up A WordPress Website Is Important?
When the people land on the website, the average span is 0.8 seconds, which is too short of dragging the attention.
If the website loads slowly, then it will result in changes that can affect the overall site ranking. Firstly, when the visitors on the site decreases due to slow speed, the organic traffic also reduces. Secondly, the conversion rate drops down, which means more bouncing off the website. Lastly, all affected the site’s SEO. Google drops the website from top to bottom in search results because of slow speed.
Therefore, to save from such harmful effects, website speed is essential.
Let’s learn the ways to speed up a WordPress website.
How To Speed Up A WordPress Website
There is no hard and fast rule to use these ways, which we are going to explain below. You can practice any of the mentioned depending on your needs.
So, let’s move on.
1. Choose A Good Web Host
It is not wrong to host a new website on a shared web host, but it affects the speed of the site severely. Though it provides unlimited offers of bandwidth, emails, domains, and space, however, it fails to provide the required loading time due to which visitors run away and won’t come again.
It causes the poor performance of the website because, at a time, countless websites are also sharing the same server. Moreover, you do not know about resources and server optimization.
It is okay if you start a site on a sharing host but always check visitors and update the site. Simply, do proper homework while web hosting.
2. Enabling Caching To Speed Up A WordPress Website
Caching is a temporary storage memory area that can save the data in one place. It stores the files and data of the web page so that every user does not need to bring the same information repeatedly. Otherwise, it will overload the site affecting its speed.
There are caching plugins that do the same, e.g., WP Super Cache. In this way, you can improve the speed of your website.
3. Using A Content Delivery Network
It is another way to increase the speed of your website. The content delivery network is a network that helps to deliver the data and files to the visitor placed to the nearest location. In this way, it reduces the loading speed to a minimum.
People from different locations across the world differ in page loading speed that delays the content to load because of the hosted server. Using CDN, the material takes less time to reach to the visitors from the server close to them.
4. Minify Javascript,HTTML And CSS Files
It means to reduce the size of these files for increasing the speed of the website—the larger the volume of the data, the more time it will take to load. Therefore, by reducing file size, the loading speed of the site becomes faster.
5. Reduce The Images To Speed Up A WordPress Website
Images in the content keep the user engaged, but the large size images also affect the site loading speed. Using a specific image format is useful for speeding up the WordPress website. You can use plugins or tools for reducing the image size without affecting its quality.
Remember:
- Always use the JPEG file format, but you can go with a PNG file also, but its size is more than JPEG.
- You can resize the image.
- Crop down the elements that are not needed.
6. Better To Use Lightweight Theme
The theme gives the physical appearance of how your website looks. Always keep in mind that WordPress themes with dynamic elements, sidebars, widgets, etc. slow down the server to respond. These elements can cause a website to run slowly, which affects the site’s working.
The better option is to use lightweight or default WordPress themes. You can also optimize them. In both ways, it will make the website faster.
7. Keep WordPress Homepage Optimize
Another thing that reduces the speed of the site is when you place unwanted widgets or tools on the WordPress homepage. Do not show all the blog posts on the same page. Try to display snippets of the posts. Remove unwanted things from the website. Make it simple not only for you but also for user experience.
Otherwise, it will slow the loading speed of the site.
8. Keep Your Website Update
Keeping the website update all times helps not only to improve the speed, performance but also to secure SEO ranking. Whether it is the theme, plugin, or content, you should update it from time to time.
9. Check Whether Plugins Are Working Or Not
It is better that you should check the plugins if not working correctly. Where it is necessary, deactivate, or uninstall the plugins if no longer use. Sometimes uses for different needs.
If you find plugins that are causing lag in the website, then try to remove them or other options.
10. Check Whether Website And Database Are In The Same Center
It is another way to speed up website performance. If the WordPress site and the database will appear in different locations, it will slow down the response. Therefore, having both in the same place is useful as it will make it easy to work.
Wrap Up
The primary benefit of speeding up a website is that it will increase the user experience. Moreover, it will improve the ranking and benefit you in the short and long run.
& Passion.