Looking for ways to speed up a WordPress blog or website? Let me show you the 10 best ways to speed up your WordPress site along with my number #1 recommended WordPress plugin for a super-fast website.
Do you know why loading speed matters?
One of the main reasons people leave websites is because it takes too long to load? Most people prefer to leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
WordPress is well designed and generally runs quickly.
But what if your WordPress is running slowly?
So, how can you speed up your WordPress website?
Luckily, there are easy ways you can speed up WordPress to make your site load as quickly as possible. WordPress optimization is something that should be done by every website owner using this popular platform.
And, you know what?
Many bloggers and website owners just get a WordPress site up and running and believe that they are done. However, with a little extra time spent optimizing WordPress, their site could be running much faster.
How to test the loading speed of your site?
Good question!
To test the speed of your site you can use the following websites.
Best websites to test loading speed:
It’s a smart idea to test your website before you optimize WordPress to see just how much loading time you are saving.
Want to know the best ways to speed up your WordPress site?
Let’s get started.
1. Use a Good Web Host
This one goes without saying. Without good web hosting services, your efforts to speed up WordPress wouldn’t fix your slow site’s loading speed.
Not all web hosts are created equal and the same goes for hosting plans.
It is essential to choose a reputed web host.
Top 3 most recommended web hosts:
A quality web hosting company will host your site on quality, fast server.
The hosting plan you choose will also affect the speed of your WordPress website. For most website owners and especially beginners, a shared plan is enough.
However, if you need more resources you can always consider upgrading your hosting package which can be done down the road.
HostGator is one of the best hosting providers, especially for beginners.
They provide 24/7 customer support, high-quality service, and is one of the most recommended web hosting company out there.
Choosing a good web host is an important decision and will ultimately be one of the deciding factors for your site speed. If you think your current web hosting plan is the problem, you might want to switch.
2. Use a Good WordPress Theme
When it comes to speeding up WordPress, you won’t have much luck if you have a poorly designed, slow theme to work with.
The theme you use on your website will play a major role in how quickly your site loads. A theme that is poorly designed and is bloated with unnecessary features can easily slow down your site.
In general, choosing good premium WordPress themes will help ensure that it will be loading fast. Below are some of my recommendations.
Fastest WordPress Themes:
Check to see that the theme states that it is fast loading and also look at the reviews. To get an idea, you can also do a test on the theme demo to see how fast it loads.
3. Install a Caching Plugin
In the most basic terms, WordPress caching works by storing a copy of your site to show to your visitors, which in turn speeds up the load time.
There are many WordPress cache plugins available that will help you speed up your site in just a few clicks. I personally use and recommend WP Rocket.
The most recommended caching plugin:
Useful: My Complete WP Rocket Review & Full Tutorial (2021).
Here are two of the most popular free caching plugins for WordPress.
- WP Super Cache: Over 1 million downloads.
- W3 Total Cache: One of the most popular WordPress caching plugins, W3 Total Cache comes with many options and features.
Simply install the plugin and set it up for your site.
Caching can dramatically improve your WordPress speed. You can test the difference by checking before and after with the speed testing tools.
4. Keep WordPress Updated
Keeping all elements of your WordPress site up to date will ensure you aren’t losing any speed. Yes, it’s a smart idea to keep your WordPress version up to date, as well as update your themes and plugins.
Why should you keep WordPress updated?
Simple. Staying updated is necessary not only for the loading speed of your site but also for security. Installing the most recent updates will ensure you are getting any recent security and bug fixes if there are any.
As you most likely know updating WordPress is easy, and you get a notification whenever a plugin needs to be updated.
Simply head over to Dashboard > Updates to see any new updates.
Pretty simple, right?
I know.
5. Optimize Your Images
This is something that many beginners often overlook, but can be one of the most important things for loading speed.
Why?
Optimizing your oversized images can help you save server speed and also dramatically increase your page loading speed.
To optimize WordPress images, there are many plugins out there.
Which plugin do I recommend?
Here are a few more image-optimization plugins:
Install the plugin you wish to use and make sure you set it to automatically optimize your images for you. It will give you peace of mind.
Pretty cool, right?
6. Remove Unnecessary Plugins
This is something that can easily make room on your site.
Sometimes you may install a plugin to try it out or use it only for a short amount of time. What some people don’t realize is that the more plugins you have, the more room they take up on your site.
How does having plenty of plugins hurt your site?
Simple. An excessive amount of plugins can bloat your WordPress website and can slow your site down. It’s critical to remove unnecessary plugins.
So what is the first step?
Decide which plugins you actually use and remove the rest.
Removing any plugins that you do not use will help you speed up your WordPress website. At the same time, it reduces your database size.
Quite easy, right?
Do it now.
7. Minify CSS and JavaScript
Don’t worry, this is not as hard as it may seem.
Once again, there is a WordPress plugin that will do this for you.
Minification is the process of taking away unnecessary information and reducing the size of your files. A smaller file size is great for loading speed.
It reduces the amount of time it takes for your site to load.
How to do it, you ask?
Quite simple. You can do this manually, but there is a much easier way. Most cache plugins have a way to minify CSS and JS files.
As mentioned already, you can take advantage of these plugins:
Using WordPress plugins, it’s quite easy to minify CSS and JS files.
Simply install the plugin, set up the options, and it will do the rest.
8. Turn off Pingbacks & Trackbacks
Pingbacks and trackbacks are built-in features in WordPress.
They work by notifying other sites when someone links to them. When someone links to you and you have this option on, a trackback will be displayed on the post.
This feature is not generally used as much anymore.
But, it can add extra work to your site.
How to turn off pingbacks and trackbacks?
Simple. Go to Settings > Discussion.
And, uncheck the checkbox that says: “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles.”
9. Enable a CDN
What is a CDN?
The full form of CDN is a content delivery network.
A content delivery network works by distributing your site across a number of servers spread across the world. When a user goes to access your site, they will use the closest server to their geographical location.
How does it help?
It speeds up the time it takes to access your site. So obviously, it can greatly enhance the speed of your website all over the world.
Which CDN do I use on this website?
Here are a few more:
10. Optimize Your Homepage
Your home page is going to be one of the most important parts of your website. So you need to make sure it loads as fast as possible.
The reason?
Your homepage contains critical information about your website.
This is something that is often overlooked when it comes to speeding up WordPress. However, there are a few quick things you can do to optimize your homepage for improved speed. Consider doing these things:
- Keep the design minimal and optimize the images.
- Use image sprites for icons.
- Remove unnecessary widgets and other plugins.
- Limit the number of posts shown and only show post excerpts.
- This last one is especially important. Without limiting the number of posts you show, you will have a long stream of posts.
Do have blog posts on your homepage?
To set the limit for the number of posts shown go to Settings > Reading.
Then set the number of posts you want to show in the “Blog pages show at most” section. To show only post excerpts, select Summary.
Your homepage is one of the first things you should optimize.
Final Words
Site speed can play a prominent role in the success of your website. If your site is running slowly, use the above-mentioned ways to speed it up.
And, here’s the fact:
47% of people expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. The majority of people expect a fast site and will leave quickly if they have to wait too long.
Very disappointing, right?
I will highly recommend you to read my WP Rocket review to understand exactly how it can help you optimize your WordPress site for super-fast loading speed.
And, so much more.
A poorly optimized WordPress site can not only cause visitors to become frustrated and leave but also affects your website’s SEO.
Anything worse?
Search engines look at loading speed as a ranking factor. That means a slow site can lower your ability to rank in search engines.
The best thing about WordPress is that it doesn’t take long to optimize.
So now, you have no excuse.
Take the time to ensure your blog/website loads fast.
Are you running a blog?
By speeding up your WordPress blog, you will be checking one more thing off your list for achieving blogging success. Isn’t it cool?
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