10 ways to speed up your WordPress website

Getting a WordPress website is not difficult since you can go to any WordPress website design company and they will do the designing for you. However, what is difficult is maintaining a smooth loading flow that

A) Does not hinder your website’s performance

B) Does not put off visitors by taking ages to load

WordPress websites with half the usual load time are what impresses the masses. So, if your site is giving you a tough time in this regard then it is time to speed things up! Here are 10 ways through which you can achieve this.

Invest in a CDN

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) works by storing static files of your website in databases that are spread across the globe. When someone, from a different geographical location, accesses your website, CDN will provide them with your static files from a database that is the closest to their location. Through this way, you can easily cut down on the loading time and speed up your website.

Since the internet is flooded with CDNs, finding a suitable one should not be a problem for you!

Optimize Images

HD images take time to load; however, that does not mean that you should sacrifice the quality in order to speed up your site. The best way to deal with this is by finding the right tools that can optimize the images for you. One such tool is the WP-SmushIt that optimizes the images by reducing the size while not affecting the image’s quality.

With the help of this tool, all of your images’ size will be automatically reduced while at the same time, the original quality will be maintained.

Get Rid of Redundant Plugins

Going overboard with plugins is never a good thing, especially when plugins bring their own sets of codes which the browsers have to load. This can slow down the website because apart from the usual codes, the browsers will have to load the additional codes of every plugin integrated into your WordPress website. So, to speed up your website, it is better to remove all the plugins that you are not using. Stick with only a few necessary ones while uninstalling the rest!

Check Your Site for Hotlinking

Hotlinking happens when someone copies the URL on your images and pastes them into their domain. So, every time someone visits their website, their images will load using your bandwidth. This is bandwidth theft that increases your server’s load time.

You can put an end to this habit by a simple .htaccess file. Once you have the codes in place, your site will speed up since no one would be able to steal your data.

LazyLoad your Images

If you have tons of images on your site, investing in a LazyLoad plugin would be a suitable option for you. LazyLoad means that only the images that are present in the visitor’s browser window will load.

The loading process of the rest of the images depends on the visitors’ scrolling pattern. If they scroll down, the images will begin to load, if they do not navigate further down below, the images will not load. This saves up bandwidth and speeds up with the entire site. LazyLoad can be achieved by installing the plugin by WP Rocket.  

High-Quality Hosting

Cheap hosting may seem attractive since they are light on the pocket. However, the problem with cheap or shared web hosting is that they take a toll on your online performance through a number of ways. Additionally, cheap web hosting tries to undo all your other efforts that you have incorporated to speed up your website. On the other hand, you do not encounter the same issues with good quality hosting.

When selecting a great hosting platform, always ensure that the hosting provider is using PHP 7 or higher since it will provide your site with a massive performance boost. You can choose your hosting provider from this list.

Integrate Premium Cache Plugin

Without a caching plugin in place, all of your visitors would have to download your web pages every time they visit your website. However, with a cache plugin, your users will be presented with a static version of your webpage that is already saved in their browsers. This will essentially cut down the need for page loading and will speed up your WordPress website.

The best caching tool in the market is the W3 Total Cache since it has simple instructions that make it easy to install and use.

Optimize Database

WordPress automatically adds up unnecessary information into your database that slows it down. For instance, it keeps a tab on every spam comment, trash item, deactivated plugins, and post revisions by storing it in the database. Since all this takes a toll on your site’s performance, it is better to install a plugin that handles and deletes the unnecessary information from your database.

A highly recommended tool for this purpose is the WP-Optimize plugin. However, you can also go for any plugin that does the trick for you!

Invest in a Simple Theme

Believe it or not, themes have the capabilities of negatively impacting your site’s performance. WordPress is filled with themes that offer various cutting-edge features which may appear attractive on the screen. However, once implemented those same features can reduce your site’s speed to a crawl.

Because of this, it is better to swap out such themes with the ones that are lightweight and does not require additional time to load. That said, WP’s default theme is a prime example of lightweight themes.

Shut Down Pingbacks

Since WordPress interacts with tons of external blogs daily, it has created a setting which notifies your WordPress site whenever someone mentions you on their blogs. Usually, it is a great thing; however, the notification process increases your WP website’s workload.

To speed up your site, the best way of dealing with pingbacks and trackbacks is by disabling them. Also, do not worry as the disabling process will not kill your backlinks, it will only kill the setting responsible for increasing the burden on your site.

Wrapping Things Up

Increasing the speed and overall performance of your WP site is not difficult since it is only a matter of applying the right techniques. Once you know which techniques optimize your WP site, you will have no difficulty in providing your users with a great online experience.

That said, it is not necessary that you stick with the above mentioned 10 tips for speeding up your site. You can implement other strategies as well, if you have the right ones in your mind!