We can consider website loading speed, especially in WordPress based websites it is an unforgettable factor that we all should care about when creating a website. We can introduce it as a Technical SEO part. So you can learn how to speed up your website from here.
Usually, page speed or page loading speed is a factor that many beginners do not apply to SEO. And also, they do not pay much attention to it. But the most important thing you need to know is that page speed is not something we can underestimate whether it’s a WordPress website or not.
Why is page speed an essential factor?
What do you do if it takes longer to load a web page by keeping the web browser’s loading icon rotating again and again? Most probably, you will go back, Most probably, you will go back, or you will close it by thinking what kind of shitty website this is. We should understand that the same thing will happen if our websites take too long to load. People don’t like to waste their time looking at the web browser’s loading icon.
So we can’t miss the page speed when focusing on user experience. It doesn’t matter how much good quality contents are on your website. If people leave your website, it will send a negative signal to Google. So it will affect to increase in the bounce rate also.
How do we keep page speed at a high level?
We can talk about several reasons why a WordPress website is fast or slow. Now let’s talk about the basic steps you need to take to speed up your WordPress website.
1. Invest in a high-quality Hosting
Choosing an excellent Hosting Provider to maintain your website is one of the basic steps you need to take to increase the performance of your website. In doing so, there may be many non-essential benefits that you are entitled to buy. However, it would be best to keep in mind that you mainly spend on HOSTING (SPACE / BANDWIDTH).
We all know that the speed of a website is essential, so we have to be very careful about it as well.
What does that mean?
As a first step, if you can avoid SHARED HOSTING, it will be great. It will eliminate the risk of slowing down the website as there are no “bad neighbour effects” in your hosting area that can slow down your website. Also, maintaining a unique server can be costly if you do not want to run a large website or run your services. For that reason, a VIRTUAL PRIVATE SERVER is usually the best option. This VIRTUAL PRIVATE SERVER type gives you good value for Performance, Speed, and Comfort.
Activating your website with Managed WordPress Hosting is another option. By doing so, your website will run on a specially optimized server for WordPress. So you will not have to worry about any technical issues while maintaining the website. Also, the price for a specially optimized server for WordPress is dropping rapidly. You will have to pay a very high cost to set up a platform specifically optimized for WordPress.
Although the price is a bit high, cloud hosting is the best option if you can afford it. In cloud hosting, the best speed and security of a website are at a maximum level.
2. Keep your Web Technology updated
The second thing on our list to speed up a WordPress website is to keep your Core Technologies up to date. That can be the main reason for releasing new Updates from time to time on HTML, PHP, and other Web technologies. Usually, recent updates include enhanced new features and improved speeds. I hope that now you may understand why you should update your website.
All websites must be running at least PHP 7.2. We say that because PHP 7.2 is still the oldest and most reliable version of security updates. A high-quality web hosting provider will take care of this on its own and let you know if your PHP version has expired. However, that alone does not exempt you from liability.
When you go to the back end of your web hosting, be sure to look for PHP Versions or a similar menu item. It will help you identify which PHP versions you are using.
Note: Some Old Codes (older versions of WordPress) are not compatible with newer versions of PHP. For that reason, when updating, be sure to check the WebSite first and get a backup. That will make it easier for you to reverse your changes if your Live Web Site is accidentally damaged.
3. Use the latest components in WordPress and its versions
Every updated version of CMS on your server comes with new features, bug fixes, and more. It will make them run your website more efficiently and prevent it from slowing down.
Keeping your website updated with the latest components helps maintain its speed and helps maintain website security. Always make sure that the latest versions of WordPress have fixed all known vulnerabilities with your Themes and Plugins. It will never slow down if your website is not compromised.
Keeping a spreadsheet by noting your plugin is a good idea. It will also help you to organize a data analysis of your WordPress and Woo Commerce Plugin. You can also analyze what server hosting does.
4. Use a suitable theme
When we talk about the theme, they can be a significant factor in determining the speed of a website. There are a lot of very confusing website themes on the internet. They offer many features that will make your website heavier.
Remember that all the elements made with codes in that themes also need to be loaded. You will not use these Features in most cases, but these codes will work on the website. It will put an unnecessary burden on your website.
For the above reason, try to find a theme with only what you need or use a lighter WordPress theme and add functionality to the website through the plugins. It will help you to keep the things you want on the website lightly without any problem. It will allow you to manage the loading time of your website better.
GeneratePress and Astra are excellent, highly recommended lightweight themes for any WordPress or Woo Commerce project.
5. Regular database maintenance
The WordPress core and the database gets confusing over time. The database collects temporary disk space and unused data from uninstalled plugins, Post Revisions, and many more unnecessary files.
For this reason, it is essential to maintain your database regularly to keep your database clean and usable. I’m going to tell you some tools on the internet that can help you with this. I can recommend the WP-Optimize and WP-Sweep plugins to make this process easier.
You should also pay attention to the wp_options table. If that table grows out of control, it can seriously slow down your website. Advanced Database Cleaner plugin can be recommended to make that process more manageable but don’t forget to back up before any operation. For a more refined and in-depth database cleanup, it is best to have a skilled professional do the job.
6. Set up a monitoring process
Only if you know there is a problem with your website can you take remedial action. Or it may constantly be slowing down and even becoming inactive.
You can use tools like Pingdom that provide automated monitoring of your website. If your website slows down after you register, they will notify you by e-mail. Investing in it is a good decision. GTmetrix‘s paid service starts at $ 14.95 and monitors things such as Server Response Time and visual render time.
7. Decrease Server Request
No matter what kind of resource your Bowser requests from the website, the server will have to fulfil that request every time. It can be in the form of a file like a style sheet, script, or image.
When more server requests are received to complete loading your website, the longer it will take. Server Requests should be as small as possible to maintain a good website. Here are some things you can do to reduce them to a minimum.
- Decrease the number of posts shown on a page
- If there are no complete notes on your citation pages, only show citations
- Divide long notes into pages
- If you get a lot of comments, divide them into a few pages
- Decrease the number of images and other features on your page
- Uninstall unwanted plugins, especially slow plugins
- Remove plugins that you do not use permanently
- Enable lazy loading delay until the image page appears
- Decrease External Recourses if the font is not needed
As mentioned earlier, Pingdom and GTmetrix plugins show you a detailed list of server requests and how long it takes to complete them. From there, you can remove the server requests or make sure to load them as soon as possible.
8. Optimize Pictures
Pictures often carry more weight than a web page. Images need more space than fonts or CSS, so it’s natural. For that reason, it is essential to learn how to make images as small as possible without compromising quality.
The old method that we used to compress your pictures before uploading. For example, in Photoshop, you can use the Save for web option, but this does not maximize image compression.
TinyPNG is one of the best Pictures optimizers, but with ShortPixel, you can get better results with Picture Optimization. If you want to compress gif images, you can use the Ezgif website. ShortPixel has a bulk optimization tool that automatically optimizes your existing pictures.
You can try Image Optimization plugins like WP Smush or EWWW for free of cost. These plugins will optimize any picture you upload to your website but are not optimized compared to the above two plugins.
Posting a full-size picture and reducing it to 300 pixels is always a slow down the website. Unfortunately, this often happens, so be sure to select the appropriate image size for your images.
9. Avoid posting videos on your website
Posting videos on your WordPress website is problematic. WordPress websites can play video, but doing so is not a good idea.
First of all, it costs a lot of bandwidth, and you should be especially careful about this if you have a limited hosting account. Secondly, it will make your WordPress website significantly more vast and more brutal to backup.
Most importantly, You can find many super video playing websites that can do a better job than your server. All you have to do is paste a video URL copied from that kind of website into your WordPress content, such as YouTube, to add videos to your content.
10. Enable Page Caching
Enable page caching can consider as one of the best ways to reduce page load time on a WordPress website. You can easily activate this feature with the help of several plugins like WP Super Cache, WP Fast Cache, and W3 Total Cache. Before using any cash plugin, it is a good idea to ask if your hosting provider is offering caching on the hosting side.
If you have a more technical mindset, you can enable caching via .htaccess.Most of the hosting providers also offer you this feature without any cost. You can activate it by contacting your hosting provider too. Nowadays, most managed WordPress service providers provide their cashing solutions. So you do not want to be frustrated.
11. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
The location of the hosting provider is a factor that we should consider for decreasing page load time. It takes longer to transmit your website data according to how far away from your website service provider and visitor’s computer are.
The Content Delivery Network (CDN) solves this problem by hosting multiple hosting providers at once. It means whenever someone requests to see your website; they can get it from the nearest location. It will reduce the download time.
Conclusion
Even if you use several methods from the list mentioned above, I think you will be able to reduce the loading time of your website by a considerable amount of seconds. Don’t remove important or necessary elements or features from your website only to make it faster. I’ll bring some more posts on this title in the future. See you guys soon. Have a nice day; bye-bye.
Here is a post on Timed content for WordPress.I hope you would love to watch this.