Why take steps to make your site load faster? Because people’s attention span has reduced over time. You only get a few seconds to grab their attention with your content.
If your site takes too long to load, doesn’t matter how good your content is, people won’t be waiting to read it.
A faster loading site will help in decreasing your bounce rate too.
According to a report by the Microsoft Bing search team, a 2-second longer delay in page responsiveness reduced user satisfaction by 3.8%, and reduced clicks by 4.3%.
Table Of Contents
Steps to speed up your WordPress site
First, check your site’s speed
Check your site’s current loading speed so that you can compare it with the loading speed after you’ve optimized your WordPress site.
You can check site speed using any of the following tools: GTMetrix, Page Speed Insights by Google, Web page test, and Web.dev.
Create a backup of your website before making any changes or updates on your site.
Speeding up a website consists of some steps that are related to your database. So it’s a good decision to have a backup in case something messes up.
For creating an automated backup, try any of these plugins: Jetpack, UpdraftPlus & BackWPup.
1. Get rid of non-essential plugins
Plugins are a great way to add functionalities to your sites. It is easy to carried away and keep trying out new plugins. Install only the necessary ones.
Some of them might be great but not essential for your site. You have to weigh in your options.
Is the new feature provided by that plugin worth it if it slows down your site?
Every plugin that you install, ads code on your site. As the number of codes on your WordPress site increases, the loading time decreases.
Also Read: How to Setup Google Amp On A WordPress Site
2. Choose a light-weight WordPress theme
Did you know that the default WordPress theme, Twenty Nineteen is quite lightweight and loads pretty quick?
Why? Because it is minimal. Too much of animations and effects in a theme can slow down your site. Here’s how you can install a WordPress theme.
3. Use a caching plugin
Why do you need a caching plugin?
When a viewer visits your site, your site’s pages get downloaded in order to be displayed.
Every time they come back to your site, the page will have to be downloaded again.
If you have a caching plugin, the web page won’t have to be downloaded in every session.
You should be using a cache plugin on your site. In the paid category, WP-Rocket is the one for you. And if you’re looking for free cache plugins then make sure to check these ones out: W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, Hyper Cache, and Cache Enabler.
Also Read: WordPress Plugins Explained In Layman Terms | GarimaShares
4. Check your PHP version
The latest version of PHP is PHP 7.4. It can increase the performance of your WordPress site.
Your hosting company handles the PHP version on your site. You can manually check your PHP version or contact your hosting’s support and ask them.
Install the Display PHP version to check which PHP version your WordPress site runs on. After installing the plugin, go to your dashboard, scroll down to that ‘at a glance section’ to see the PHP version.
If it is less than 7.0 (Which is 5.6), you can ask them to upgrade to the latest PHP version.
5. Optimize your images
Smush.it is one of the best plugins you can use to optimize images on your WordPress site.
All of the images that are uploaded on the site get automatically optimized without reducing their quality.
The smaller your media files are, the faster your site will load.
The average website transfers 800-900kb of images per URL.
6. Apply LazyLoad
LazyLoad is the process of having only the images that are currently visible in the viewer’s window.
As the viewer scrolls down, more images will load. LazyLoading improves your site speed because all the images don’t have to be loaded together.
This also saves bandwidth by loading less data for users who don’t scroll all the way down on your pages.
To do this automatically, install the jQuery Image Lazy Load plugin.
Astra theme is a fast loading WordPress theme, try it out.
7. Don’t put too many ads
Ads are a great source of income, agreed. But stuffing too many ads can hamper the user experience.
Also, the ads are made of codes. So, more ads = more codes on your site = more time to load.
If advertisements are a must, you should use Google AdSense or Media.net as it is well optimized and gives the best CPC.
