Site loading speed has been, is and will be the priority criterion for the success of the site. And we should not forget that WordPress is one of the most popular CMS and does not affect the speed of loading sites hosted on it.
In this post, we’ll give you a few tips on how to speed up the loading of the WordPress website, without investing a lot of time and effort.
Why fast loading website is so important?
If you are wondering why you need to speed up your site, take into account the three main important points.
Improving conversion
The Internet is full of articles on how to because of the delay of the download page for just one second, visitors immediately leave the site. Users hate slow sites, which is why quick sites bring more sales, gain more subscribers, likes, and followers.
Improved user experience
Over the past two years, the phrase “user experience” has become sensational, and is still on everyone’s lips. UX is a very important aspect of web design, as the emphasis is on creating comfortable usability, that site is even more important than its appearance.
Improving positions in search engines
Google has always said that the web page load speed is a critical factor for its issuance in the free search. And since search engines are more concerned about the site, which in turn takes care of its users, it is logical that the download speed will affect the search results.
Test how Google sees your site, you can always check it here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
How to speed up the loading of the WordPress website?
You can find many ways to improve the speed of loading of WordPress website pages.
Let us consider a few of them.
Using caching plugins
Each time, when the page is viewed by the user, the database receives numerous requests for the data to be displayed to the user. However, you need a certain amount of time to retrieve the data in the server memory. Sometimes less, if the requested data is a single file.
In this case, caching plugins can be useful. They keep the data in the cache and serve them for a particular query. That is, instead of processing dozens of requests for each page, the plugin selects the specific page which the user wants to access.
Among the best caching plugin, it is worth to note WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache, which is used in almost all WordPress sites. If you want to go for a premium plugin, go for WP Rocket.
Minimize and combine CSS and JavaScript files
Web pages of your site consist mainly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and most of the CSS and JavaScript files are in different folders. Your browser creates a request to the server to get all of the files, collects them together and thus displays a page for the user.
And with the installation of complex themes or plugins, the number of CSS and JavaScript files will increase significantly. And despite the fact that the browser makes a request to them immediately, each request gets a delay in the millisecond to load a page. And they, in turn, may develop into a second, because of which the visitor usually leaves the site.
But this problem can be solved as follows. You can combine the same type of files that will send one CSS and JavaScript files for each page. For this task, there are many plugins, which also help in minimizing the code. One such plugin is Autoptimize.
Be careful: Minimizing CSS and JavaScript code can cause problems in the front, so you have to be very careful with them. But do not be afraid if something goes wrong. Such problems can be prevented if you disable the plugin, and clear the cache using caching plugins.
Perform regular database cleanup
Whenever you perform any action on your site, whether it is the addition/deletion of files, comments, change settings, install new plugins, the database needs to be cleaned regularly.
In WordPress repository, you will find a lot of plugins to clean the database, for example, WP-Optimize. With it, you can do the cleaning in just one click. Do this on a regular basis at least once a week.
Choose a reliable hosting provider
Keep in mind that even if you have a perfectly optimized website, it will still load slowly if hosted on a wrong server.
Therefore, choosing high-performance hosting is the first thing that can accelerate the work of the site. Good hosting servers provide high-quality equipment and have the best technical support department.
Conclusion
Now as you know the main reasons that can let you accelerate the operation of your WordPress website. Recheck them all and fix your website load speed in no time.
