How to Speed up WordPress Website
1. Choose a Fast and Reliable Hosting Provider
Your web hosting is the major determinant of your site’s performance. A shared hosting plan is budget-friendly but can cause high traffic and thus long loading times. You may want to upgrade to:
- Managed WordPress Hosting: Such providers as WP Engine and Kinsta offer optimized environments specifically designed for WordPress.
- VPS or Dedicated Server: For websites of big sizes, a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a dedicated server is the best option because they provide more resources and faster speed.
- Cloud Hosting: Technologies such as Cloudways or AWS allow scaling and flexibility for websites that are growing.
2. Use a Lightweight Theme
- GeneratePress
- Astra
- Neve
3. Optimize and Compress Images
Internet theft affects online businesses with very slow downloading of big picture files. Tips for optimizing images:
- Use Proper Formats: JPEG is best for photos, PNG is better for graphic images with fewer colors, and SVG is good for vector images.
- Compress Images: Make use of plugins such as Smush or ShortPixel to compress images for web without any loss of quality.
- Implement Lazy Loading: In the simplest sense, lazy loading involves deferring image loading to when they are needed. This plugin, for instance, Lazy Load by WP Rocket, will help a lot.
4. Minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
Smaller file size is achieved with help of minification which includes eliminating all redundant spaces, comments, and other possible characters. The way to minify your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files:
- There are certain plugins like Autoptimize and WP Rocket which can compress your files automatically.
- Combine CSS and JavaScript Files: As the number of HTTP requests decreases, your site speeds up.
- These plugins facilitate combining files to improve performance even further.
5. Enable Browser Caching
Browser caching is an action that saves static files into users’ browsers. As a result, websites load faster on the second visit. The way to activate browser caching:
- Use a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache.
- Setting expiration dates for your files can help you use them according to the required time.
6. Utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A Global Content Delivery Network in CDNs provides these resources of your webpage for copy location among several server locations. This way, your site is pushed through the server that is located near the user providing better loading speed. Popular CDN services include:
- Cloudflare
- StackPath
- Amazon CloudFront
7. Optimize Your Database
During a period of time, your WordPress database collects useless data such as post revisions, spam comments, and transients. Timely optimization of the database can be beneficial in boosting the performance:
- Use plugins like WP-Optimize or Advanced Database Cleaner to clean up your database
8. Deactivate and Delete Unused Plugins
Too many plugins can slow down your website. Even deactivated plugins can affect performance. Keep your site lean:
- Delete any plugins you’re not using.
- You can reduce the number of heavy plugins by using their lightweight alternatives. Instead of using a plugin for each small feature, try to include some custom code snippets instead.
9. Enable GZIP Compression
GZIP compression lowers the size of files sent from your server to users’ browsers. GZIP compression is generally included in most popular caching plugins. If not, you can enable it manually by adding the following code to your .htaccess file:
10. Use a Performance Optimization Plugin
11. Reduce External HTTP Requests
External scripts such as Google Fonts, social sharing buttons, and ads may decrease your site’s performance. To reduce their impact:
- Reduce the usage of external scripts and fonts.
- Google Fonts can be downloaded locally or critical CSS can be preloaded.
12. Monitor Your Website’s Performance
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