11 Ways to Speed up the WordPress Website

WordPress has emerged as one of the fabulous platforms for creating a website but the slow speed is a question of worry. It not only marks a bad impression on the people coming to your website but there are higher chances that you might lose the potential customers. That is why it becomes more necessary that your website loads faster as it is the only way you can grab the attention of the people especially the ones who are visiting it for the first time.

According to the recent survey it is found that if any website takes more than 3 seconds to load, it is bound to lose the interest of the visitors who instantly switch to better websites. Not only this, even the rank of the site goes down if it takes more time to load. Now you will not want this to happen and will wish that your website performs better. For this, you need to try ways to accomplish the purpose and it is only possible if you keep the below tips in mind.

So, here are a few easy tips that you can follow in order to speed up the performance of your website and make sure it makes a long-lasting impression on the people.

Tips to Speed up Your WordPress Website

Tip #1. Optimize the homepage

The very first thing that you can do is optimizing the homepage as it is one of the frequently visited pages of your website. So, make sure the page is clean with crisp content and the desired number of widgets. If the page has too many posts or is loaded with widgets it will take time to load thus losing the interest of the visitors. Get rid of the plugins which are less in use or of no use to make the page look better and quick to load. If you focus on your home page there are high chances that people will get attracted towards your website.

Tip #2. Go for static HTML

If the coding of your website is done using PHP or any other language make sure to replace it with static HTML. It is because HTML has a drastic improvement on the loading speed of the overall website. So, by using the right coding technique you can easily enhance the speed and look forward to a better performing website which seeks the attention of the visitors.

Tip #3. Use compressed images

Most of the space on your website is taken by the large images which in turn take a lot of time to load. So, to get rid of this problem, you can first compress the image and then use it on your website. In this way, the images will load quickly and the user experience will get improved by leaps and bounds.

For this, you can make use of tools like Tiny PNG which helps in easy compression and brings down the colour ratio thus compressing the images in the right way. Apart from this try the Lazy Load plugin which is meant for the websites that contain a lot of images.

Tip #4. Selecting the right hosting provider

Though most people do not pay attention to this aspect, the hosting services can make a big difference to the loading speed of the website or its pages. That is why it is recommended to use the WordPress plugin called WP engine which is a managed hosting solution and helps in scaling your website. Even if you are not technically sound, still you will get used to the plugin and find it useful. Also, the WP engine hosting service offers other advantages too like scalability, free domain name and much more. So, going for the right hosting service or plan can help you a lot.

Tip #5. Caching plugin

Then you need to ponder over the caching plugin as well to ensure that your website loads quickly whenever any visitors come to it. Now there is a long list of caching plugins in WordPress that you can opt for but WP Rocket is the most effective of all. By using it you can put an end to all the speed problems as images will only load when requested by the user and the code is replaced with the static HTML. Thus, these small changes have a big impact on the loading speed of the website.

Tip #6. Optimizing the database of your website

Next you can work on the database of your website and make sure it is optimized completely. For this, you can make use of the WordPress plugin called WP Sweep. The main purpose of this plugin is to remove the duplicate metadata and the comments that occupy a lot of space. It will help in deleting spam, useless post revisions, orphaned data and much more. If your database is up to date and cleans it will surely have an impact on the site’s performance thus boosting the rank and catching the eye of more and more people.

Tip #7. Flexible sharing plugins

There is no denial to the fact that social media is an important addition to any website and you cannot keep away from it. So rather than including all the social sharing buttons on your website it will be good if you integrate the ones that are necessary and worth for your website. This will certainly influence the performance of the website.

Plugins that you can use is the Floating Social Bar which is one of the best options to achieve the purpose. It is easy to use and can help in the overall improvement of the website too.

Tip #8. Use CSS at the top

Whenever you open the website, the CSS loads first so it will be good if you place it on the top followed by your JavaScript code. In case CSS is placed at the end the browser will have to go through the entire code to reach the CSS which will consume a lot of time. So, make a smart move and embed CSS right at the top and the scripts only after the CSS.

Tip #9. Go for CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Almost all the websites and blogs that you come across over the internet are utilizing this feature. The main motive to use CDN is to let the visitor download the static files quickly. Thus, not much time wasted and getting used to it is simple. So why waste time in trying other options when CDN is so effective and trustworthy.

You can even try the plugin for this purpose and it is the Free CDN which is like the above and has similar features and can help you in the same manner.

Tip #10. Choose an optimized theme

Another change that you can bring to your website is by using a theme which is fully optimized. Though there are lots of pre-designed themes that you will come across, not all are coded well and therefore you need to pick the one which looks impressive and at the same time is optimized well. This is the reason that one should go for the themes which are simple as their layouts are good and there are no complexities associated with it. Thus, you can look forward to a hassle-free theme that works for your website.

Tip #11. Bring down HTTP requests

Many times, it is seen that the WP plugins load a lot of stuff from other websites which in turn brings down the speed of your website. In order to overcome this, you need to make sure that the HTTP requests are low so that all sorts of stuff are not loaded unless requested by the user. For this, you will have to disable the scripts as it is the only way to counteract with this problem. Once you do is useless stuff will not load and the website will take lesser time for the same.

These are some of the simplest ways that can be adapted to speed up your website and make sure it ranks high on the search engines as well. As WordPress websites are gaining a lot of popularity day by day you need to do something to stand out. By following the above tips, you can surely offer an incredible experience to the visitors who want to visit websites that are in great in design and load quickly as well.

Final Words!!!

What more you would be looking for as once you have integrated these tips your WordPress website will boost up. Its performance will go up and you will see a significant rise in the number of people coming to your website. If the speed of your website was an issue for you, it will come to an end by making use of the above tips and tricks.

Hope you love the post and find it useful when designing or redesigning your website to work more efficiently.