Do you want to know how to speed-up WordPress sites? If so, then you have come to the right spot. This article provides some useful tips to increase the speed of your WordPress website.
It is common to prioritise how a website looks while you are creating it. The first thing a visitor will see is your website’s design. What if your page loads so slow that people abandon it before they can see the first piece.
See Also: 34 Simple Tips to Improve SEO on WordPress
You should optimize your website for speed. Do you have an existing website that’s functional but is slowing down? Don’t worry! It is possible to optimize existing sites for speed.
This article contains tips to help you deal with both of these situations. Learn more about these tips and how to apply them to your website.
How to speed up WordPress sites
Are you more likely to use a speedy website to find, download, and buy what you want? Or would you rather wait for a slow website’s page to load, regardless of how long it takes? It is obvious that most people would choose to go with the first option.
Your visitors would appreciate it. A fast website is vital to maintain visitors’ attention. What does that translate into for website owners? Here are some things that you need to remember:
A great user experience will encourage visitors to spend more time on your site, as well as return for more resources.
Low bounce rates and high conversions: Your visitors will be less likely to abandon your site before it fully loads. They are more likely, however, to download or purchase something.
More traffic, more revenue: A low bouncerate due to a pleasant experience for users means an increase of traffic. You might also experience an increase in revenue through conversions.
Google search rankings can be improved by having a faster search engine ranking. A website that is fast will rank higher in search engine pages results (SERPs), compared to a slower website. Optimizing speed is also an important aspect of your WordPress SEO.
This is why it’s a good idea to speed up your WordPress site. Here are some actionable tips to make your site faster.
1. Use a Speed-optimized WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme is a website’s foundation. Your website’s performance over time will be affected by the theme. It’s wise that you choose a theme which is optimized for speed.
This means that the theme has an extremely small file size and sends less server requests while loading. This significantly reduces the load times. It isn’t overloaded with code that slows pages down.
Zakra theme
Zakra is a perfect example of speed-optimized WordPress themes. Kinsta ranked the theme 7th in a test of the fastest WordPress themes 2021.
2. Pick a reliable hosting company
Just like a WordPress theme. Choosing a hosting company should be your first priority. These providers save all your website data to their web server and make them available online.
You have so many options. Which one should you choose?
First, choose the type of website that you are going to build. Next, determine how many resources you will need from your hosting service. A new website may not require much storage space or bandwidth. you may require some storage space, bandwidth, and other resources at the start.
You can also start a simple portfolio or blog by purchasing a basic WordPress hosting plan through one of the best WordPress hosting providers.
It’s best to avoid shared hosting if your website has a lot of traffic. Shared hosting means you share server resources with other websites. This could cause your site to experience a decrease in performance when there is an increase of traffic.
In this instance, managed WordPress hosting and cloud hosting are the best options. Both guarantee high performance, without any downtime, even during traffic spikes.
Kinsta Best Website Hosting for a blog
Siteground, Kinsta, WPEngine and Siteground are just a few of the top hosting providers that offer these hosting services.
3. Use a WordPress Caching Tool Plugin
Every visitor who clicks on a link to a website is presented with its content once it has been retrieved and assembled from the database. Your site’s loading speed will be affected by the back and forth of data requests and data requests until the page is loaded fully.
This problem can easily be solved by saving static copies of your web pages and serving these to visitors. WordPress cache plugins do exactly what you need to speed up WordPress. It decreases the load time and the requests to the databases.
WP Rocket cache plugin
WP Rocket is one of the most well-known WordPress cache plugins. It also has speed tests. If you are going to use this tip, it is worth checking them out.
4. Optimize Your Images
A website that uses high-resolution photos sounds very appealing. These large files can take a lot of time to load. The format of the images is also a factor in the page loading times.
PNG and JPEG images are the most used types of images on-line. WordPress 5.8 updated has added WebP image support. WebP images can be smaller than JPEG and PNG, which is better for your site speed.
First of all, make sure you use the right format for your images. You must crop your images properly before you upload them to your website.
It’s not the only method. Smush, Optimole, and Smush are image optimization tools that optimize your images automatically with lossy compression.
optimole image optimization
The lossy process reduces the image’s size, but also reduces its quality. The lossless approach doesn’t cause a drastic decrease in quality or size.
As you learn more about these techniques, you will be able decide which compression level is best to optimize your images.
5. Pick premium DNS over free DNS
A Domain name is the website’s URL. ThemGrill’s Domain Name is themegrill.com. This domain name will help you reach your target audience and the business it represents. A good domain name is essential for your website.
When you register a domain, you have the option to choose between a premium or free DNS (Domain Name System). People with a tight budget may choose to go with the free option. But we recommend choosing the premium one as they’re quicker, more reliable, and provide better security.
Although premium DNS is not included in most domain services, it can be purchased as an added service with the best domain registry companies.
Namecheap Premium DNS Service
Namecheap Premium DNS Service
GoDaddy, Namecheap, and other DNS providers offer premium DNS services.
6. Minify CSS and HTML files
By optimizing your HTML, JavaScript, CSS files, you can speed up a WordPress site. Minification reduces the file’s size by removing any unnecessary lines breaks or comments.
To reduce HyperText transfer protocol (HTTP) requests, you can combine these files. This eliminates having to make separate calls for each CSS/JavaScript file. This reduces the number of requests, which in turn makes your site faster.
Minify CSS HTML, JS
WP Rocket and WP Optimizmize offer minification settings. You can activate minification only in the cache plug-in you’re using, or are planning to use.
7. Setup a CDN
Your website contents are fetched every time a visitor clicks it. This is a huge problem for global companies with target audiences across the globe. Your website will load more slowly if they are further away from the main server.
Asian visitors won’t get the same page speed as American users if the server’s location is in the USA.
This problem can be solved by using a Content Delivery Network. The network has many servers that are distributed around the globe and store a cached backup of all your website information.
This means that visitors will request this data from the closest server, not the main server. This increases the website’s speed for visitors coming from any location.
Cloudflare (Stackpath), KeyCDN and Cloudflare are some of our most trusted CDNs. This article will provide a comprehensive guide to the top CDN services for WordPress sites.
8. Use AMP to improve your website
Mobile device speed is something you don’t want to overlook. Mobile users can be just as impatient with page speed than desktop users. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), a method to speed up a WordPress web site from cellular devices, can be used.
AMP improves page speed by limiting HTML, CSS, javascript and other HTML on mobile sites. An AMP plugin can be used to implement this feature on your site. This will not only boost your SEO but also provide a fantastic user experience for mobile visitors.
AMP how to increase website speed in WordPress
Need an AMP plug-in to get you started. Here are the top ten AMP plugins we recommend.
9. Update core WordPress regularly
WordPress is best updated on a regular basis. These updates contain security and bug fixes. Do not put off updating WordPress as it can make your website slow and susceptible to security attacks.
To verify if WordPress is the most current version, visit your Dashboard’s update section. If you’re still using an old version of WordPress, please immediately update to the latest version.
WordPress update
Our guide will show you how to upgrade WordPress themes, plugins and websites to the most current version.
10. It is important to update the theme and plugins regularly
WordPress core should also be updated. Themes and plugins used by you should be updated as well.
You will find a listing of all the new plugins and themes in the Updates area. It will tell you if the updated version of the plugin is compatible. For ease of updating, you can pick them all and make bulk updates.
update plugins
It is crucial to keep in mind that any customizations that you make to the theme during updating will be lost.
You can avoid this by using child themes, while customizing the WordPress template.
As you have seen, we offer a detailed guide for updating WordPress themes and plugins.
11. Better to use fewer plugins
You don’t have to do more than you need. You’re adding more code to your browser for every plugin you install or activate. You’re also slowing down the site’s performance by adding every unnecessary plugin.
For example, multiple plugins may do the exact same thing as the image below. Cache Enabler and Breeze are WordPress cache plug-ins. When one is sufficient, you don’t necessarily need them all.
How plugins can speed up your WordPress site
Sometimes you may be installing multiple plugins to add different functions, but it could be that you are only using one plugin offering all of the features.
This is why it’s so important to go through any plugins you have or are planning to use and keep only those that are necessary. The more plugins your WordPress site has, the faster it will load.
We have compiled a comprehensive list of the top WordPress plugins.
12. Removing unused plugins from your website
So what do you do with all these plugins? It is best to remove and uninstall all plugins. You can’t just deactivate inactive plug-ins, as they will bloat your database with existing data.
To do this, visit your WordPress Dashboard. Click on Plugins. Next, click on Plugins.
This could leave behind tables of plugin data in your database. To completely eliminate it, either clear the tables manually or use Advanced Database Cleaner plugin.
13. Don’t host videos on your website
WordPress offers the ability to upload video directly from a media library or computer. This can be slow for website speed.
This is what you’re doing by hosting large video files onto your site. Aside from the slow performance, your web host provider will have to charge large fees based upon the video bandwidth used.
You can instead host all of your videos on third-party platforms like Youtube or Vimeo. You can then use the WordPress video embed feature and copy the link of your video to add to the page. It’s easy!
Host videos about how to speed up your WordPress site
Explore other methods to embed video. This guide will show you how to embed YouTube videos in WordPress.
14. Implement Lazy Loading for your Images
Every image on your website doesn’t need to load at once. This will lead to a slower loading time for pages. It’s better not to place images at the bottom than images that are immediately visible to visitors.
Lazy loading is the best solution. When a visitor navigates around your website, the images will load. This increases the speed of WordPress sites.
WP Rocket’s cache plugins include the Lazy Load function. Smush, for image optimization WordPress plug-ins like Smush, has it as well. It is possible to use only one of the lazy loading plugins instead.
15. Turn off Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Pingbacks, and trackbacks, are mechanisms that notify you when another website links to your posts. Sites that receive many trackbacks and/or pingbacks are in big trouble. Each request generated by each link can put unnecessary strain on your server.
If this happens, your website’s load speed will be affected. Disable pingbacks, trackbacks.
Click on Discussion from the Settings menu on your Dashboard. Click on Discussion to remove the Allow notification of link from other blogs checkbox and save changes.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
16. Use Excerpts instead of Blog Posts
Too many blog post loading on one page will slow down your website. Two solutions are available to solve this problem.
First, blog posts should not be displayed on your homepage.
To do this, visit your Dashboard and click Settings. In the Reading section set Include: to Summary for each feed entry. This is by default Full Text.
blog excerpts
You can paginate blog entries using the second method. You can also define the initial display order of blog posts on a page by using the same settings.
Let’s say that you set it for 10. If you want your visitors to be able to browse more than 10 posts at once, they will need a button that will load additional blog posts.
17. Hotlink protection
Hotlinking happens when another website links directly with your website’s media files. This includes images, videos and infographics.
This can slow down your WordPress website by increasing HTTP requests to your web server and loading your site with more load. Additional bandwidth and resource use will be added to the equation.
So, how can you prevent this from happening and increase the speed of your WordPress website?
- Cloudflare offers a CDN option with built-in hotlink security.
- You can also use the.htaccess file to enable hotlink protection.
- Hotlink protection can be provided by plugins such As All In One WP Security and Firewall.
- Another way to prevent your visitors from copying your URL is to disable their right click Prevent content theft can be achieved with a plugin.
- Alternately, you can change the media file link. This will cause a 404 not found error to the hotlinking party.
18. Limit the usage of social buttons and widgets
Similar to plugins but worse, stuffing your website full of unnecessary widgets is a recipe for disaster. They cause slow page speeds by increasing the number data requests to your database.
Social buttons and widgets that limit widgets
Add only the widgets and buttons that are necessary for your niche.
19. Paginate Comments Under Blog Posts
A few comments below blog posts won’t be a problem. This can cause slowdowns in your site if there are multiple discussions and hundreds of replies under one blog post.
Instead of loading every comment on one page, paginate comments like you would blog posts.
Go to Discussion on your Settings page. Set Break comments into pages to change the number. Make sure you save any changes once you’re finished.
Comments paginate
20. Use the most recent PHP version
Hypertext preprocessor (PHP), a version of PHP that is more recent, has improved performance for WordPress websites. Update it to the most current version.
If you are unsure which version you have, you can check it in the Dashboard. Click Site Health under the Tools section.
Scroll down to the Recommended Improvements and you will see a suggestion that you upgrade PHP. It clearly shows you which version of PHP you’re using.
However, PHP cannot be upgraded from the WordPress dashboard. PHP runs on the web server. To upgrade PHP to the latest version, you will have to contact your web hosting provider.
21. Optimize your website’s database
Some data may not be needed anymore, even though it is stored in the database. WordPress will experience slowdowns due to all the useless information that is bloating your database and delaying requests.
Optimizing your site’s databases is important. It is possible to do this manually by cleaning up your database on a regular basis. You can use a cache plugin, or a database optimization plug to do it automatically.
Advanced Database Cleaner and WordPress Optimize are just a few of the many options available to you.
22. Enable HTTPS and keep your website secure
HTTP is used for data transfer between a browser (or website). HTTPS is the secure variant of this protocol. It uses encryption to make data transfers safe. HTTPS websites include a lock icon in their URL.
Use HTTPS
This protocol offers you protection against online security attacks that may affect your website’s performance. Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), are just one example.
That’s not all. Visitors are more likely to trust secure sites than they are non-secure. It is possible to see an increase of traffic and conversions. Google favors HTTPS pages above HTTP. This will aid your site’s SEO.
- It is a good idea to enable HTTPS for your website. How can you do that?
- First, make sure you choose a host provider that provides a dedicated IP.
- Order an SSL certificate through your hosting provider and activate the certificate.
- After this, install the certificate onto your server.
- Make sure to update WordPress so that HTTPS can be enabled.
- When appropriate, redirect your visitors from HTTP to HTTPS pages.
- We have more information on how to add SSL and HTTPS security to your site.
Do you hesitate about spending money for an SSL certificate? Bluehost offers SSL certificates as a free service to all dedicated hosting customers.
23. Add Expire Headers
A header called “expire” can be added to a browser’s URL to determine how long it should cache the content. All returning visitors to your website will see the cached version until the designated time. These visitors will have access to a faster page speed for a shorter period.
Once the expiration period has expired, all content on the site is replaced with fresh content from the server. This content is stored in the browser cache until it expires.
It’s possible your CDN (like KeyCDN, Azure CDN) adds an expires heading to each server request. If this is the case, you will need to manually add them or use plugins like Add Expires Headers.
add expire headers
24. If possible, use HTML over PHP
PHP is necessary for dynamic web elements like login, registration, ecommerce, and many other.
The downside to not having PHP code in your themes is that it will increase requests to our database. The result is a slower WordPress site due to too many requests.
This can easily be avoided by replacing PHP code with simple HTML codes whenever possible.
HTML
HTML doesn’t communicate with the database like PHP. Therefore, the database will be able to process fewer back-and forth requests. Your website will be faster because of this.
25. Reduce Redirects on Your Website
A redirect is a way for a browser navigate to one URL after another. This process can take a lot of time. More redirections can cause delays. In order to speed up WordPress, you need to reduce the amount of redirects.
This is how to speed up your WordPress site
Screaming Frog, an SEO tool, can be used to crawl all your links and discover how many redirects you have. After you’ve done this, delete all redirects to dead URLs. Fix 404 errors. Remove unnecessary 301 redirect chains.
26. Clean up your media library
You may forget to delete media files that are associated with the theme for your website. As you upload more images, they will take up more space.
Cleaning up your media library will help you free up space within your database. This will increase the speed of WordPress.
It’s also quite easy. Click on Media from your Dashboard. You will see all the files within your media library. You can select and remove any file you don’t need by using bulk selection.
clean media library
27. Disable, Delete, or Limit Post Revisions
While you are writing a blog, your drafts will automatically be saved as post revisions. This feature allows for you to access your previous drafts. Post revisions that are too numerous will take up unnecessary database space.
To increase the speed of your WordPress website, you can either disable or limit post revisions using the following methods.
A. Disable post revisions
First, locate the file wpconfig.php in the root directory of your WordPress website. Then, you will need to add the code above:
define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS, false)
This code prevents the future from storing any post-revisions.
Simply replace this code with the following:
define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS, true)
B. Delete all post revisions
WPOptimize plugins or similar plugins can be used to remove post revisions.
A SQL query can also be used to accomplish this. Navigate to phpMyAdmin. Choose your database, then execute this query in SQL section.
C. Limit post revisions
If you have any post-revisions you can simply replace false or true values in the code with a number.
define(?WP_POST_REVISIONS, 5)
WordPress will now save a maximum 5 post revisions.
28. Disable automatic updates
WordPress automatically runs background updates on your plugins and themes. It’s great that WordPress will alert users when a new version or plugin is released.
The main drawback to this is the slowing of admin dashboard performance because background checks are occurring at regular intervals. This can be easily fixed by disabling automatic WordPress Updates with plugins such Easy Updates Manager and Disable all WordPress Updates.
Automated updates are a way to speed up your WordPress site
However, you shouldn’t ignore updating your system regularly. You should deactivate these plugins at least once a week and then check manually for any new updates.
Wrapping up
This was our list with WordPress speed optimization tips that will increase the speed and performance of your WordPress site.
No matter whether you have a website in place or are looking to create one, there are many tips. Consider implementing any tips that will improve the performance of your WordPress website.
If you found this article useful, you may also be interested in our article on speed optimization plugins and other tools.