Key things to boost WordPress speed & performance

WordPress is a great content management system (CMS). However, as with any CMS, there are always ways to optimize its performance. In this article, we will show you how to boost WordPress speed and performance.

To make it easier to follow, we’ve created the table of contents that will guide you through our complete guide to speed up the performance of your WordPress website.

We made sure to cover every aspect from the reasons why speed is crucial as well as what can slow down your WordPress website, and the actionable actions you can take to increase your WordPress speed in a matter of minutes.

Why Speed is Important?

A fast website is a good user experience. Nobody likes to wait for a slow website to load. In fact, the latest research from Google has shown the 53% mobile web users will abandon the website doesn’t load within three seconds.

Not only is speed important for user experience, but it is also important for search engine optimization (SEO). Google has stated that site speed is a ranking factor. This means that if your website is slow, you are less likely to rank high in Google search results.

How to check your website speed?

Before you can start optimizing your WordPress site for speed, you need to know how fast it currently loads. There are many online tools that you can use to test your website speed, such as GTmetrix, Google Page Speed and Pingdom.

Simply enter your website URL and these tools will test your website speed and give you a detailed report. This report will show you where your WordPress site needs improvement.

Factors that can affect your site Speed

There are many factors that can affect your WordPress site’s speed. Some of them are:

• Hosting: If you are on a shared hosting plan, your site speed will be affected by other websites on the same server.
• WordPress Themes and Plugins: WordPress themes and plugins can also affect your website’s speed. It is important to use lightweight themes and plugins that are well-coded and regularly updated.
• Images: Large images can slow down your website. Make sure to optimize your images for the web before uploading them to your WordPress site.
• Database: An inefficient database can also affect your WordPress site’s speed. You can optimize your WordPress database by using a plugin or manually.
• Cashing: If your WordPress website isn’t serving pages that are cached, it could overload the server, which will cause your site to become slow or even crash completely.
• External scripts: External scripts, like advertisements, font loaders, etc. can significantly impact the performance of your site.

How to boost WordPress website Speed?

In this article, we will show you how to boost WordPress speed and performance by implementing some of the methods mentioned above. Let’s get started!

Choose Best Hosting for WordPress Website

One of the most important factors that affect your WordPress site’s speed is hosting. Shared hosting is the most popular type of WordPress hosting. However, shared hosting can also be the slowest type of hosting. This is because your website’s speed is affected by other websites on the same server.

If you are serious about speed, then you should consider using a managed WordPress hosting provider. Managed WordPress hosting providers to optimize their servers for WordPress websites. This means that your website will load faster on a managed WordPress host.

Some of the best-managed WordPress hosting providers are:

• SiteGround – Starts at $3.99/mo.
• EasyWP by Namecheap – Try 30 Days Free
• Hostinger WordPress Hosting – Start at $1.99/mo.
• A2 Hosting Managed WordPress – Start at $11.99/mo
• Bluehost WordPress Hosting – Start at $2.95/mo.

Install Lightweight Theme

Make sure that your theme is up to date and optimized for speed. A lot of times, themes can be bloated with unnecessary code and files which can slow down your site.

There are many WordPress themes that are specifically designed for speed and performance. These themes are usually lightweight and well-coded. Some of our favorite themes for speed and performance are:

• Astra WordPress Theme
• GeneratePress WordPress Theme
• OceanWP WordPress Theme
• Hello Theme by Elementor
• Neve WordPress Theme

Update and Remove Unnecessary Plugins

Next, take a look at your plugins and make sure that they are all up to date and necessary. Sometimes, outdated or unused plugins can drag down your entire site.

So, it’s important to keep your plugins up to date and only use the ones that you need. Only keep the ones that are absolutely essential for your website.

Optimize Images

One of the most common causes of slow WordPress sites is unoptimized images. When you upload an image to your WordPress site, it often comes with all sorts of extra data that is not needed for web use.

Image optimization plugins can help you to optimize and compress your images without losing quality. We recommend using a plugin like WP Smush, Optimus or EWWW Image Optimizer.

Use Lazy Loading

Lazy loading is a technique that delays the loading of images on a webpage until they are needed. This can help to improve your website’s performance because it means that the images are only loaded when they are visible to the visitor.

There are a few ways to lazy load images in WordPress. One option is to use a plugin like WP Smush, a3 Lazy Load or Image optimization and Lazy Load by Optimole. Alternatively, you can use a service like Cloudinary which provides its own lazy loading solution.

Install Caching Plugin

Finally, consider using a caching plugin to speed up your site. A caching plugin will create static HTML files of your pages and posts which can be served to visitors much faster than dynamic content.

We recommend using a plugin like W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache or Litespeed Cache for Litespeed Server.

Optimize WordPress Database

One of the most important things you can do to speed up WordPress is to optimize your WordPress database. Over time, your WordPress database can become bloated with unnecessary data. This extra data can slow down your website.

There are many plugins that can help you optimize your WordPress database. We recommend using a plugin like WP-DB Manager or Advanced Database Cleaner.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network (CDN) is a collection of servers located around the world. When you use a CDN, your website’s static files (like images and videos) are served to visitors from a server that is closer to their location. This can help to speed up your website because it reduces the distance that the data has to travel.

We recommend using a WordPress CDN like Cloudflare or StackPath.

These are just a few of the key things you can do to Boost WordPress Speed & Performance. By following these tips, you can significantly improve your website’s speed and performance.

Reduce External HTTP Requests

Another way to reduce the number of HTTP requests is to Limit the number of external HTTP requests by using Google Analytics Local copies of jQuery and other common Javascript libraries, using a content delivery network (CDN) for static resources, sprites and inline images, combining CSS and JS files, etc.

By reducing the number of HTTP requests, you can decrease the amount of time it takes for a page to load.

Reduce Database Calls

Each time a visitor loads a page, WordPress has to run a number of database queries. By reducing the number of database queries, you can speed up your WordPress site.

There are a number of ways to reduce database calls, including caching your pages and posts, using a WordPress performance plugin, and optimizing your database.

If you have a lot of dynamic content on your home page (like a blog), consider using a static front page. A static front page is a single HTML file that is served to visitors. This can help to reduce the number of database queries and speed up your home page.

Disable Hotlinking and Leeching of Your Content

Hotlinking is when another website links to an image or file on your website. This can cause your server to become overwhelmed and can slow down your website.

To prevent hotlinking, you can add a few lines of code to your .htaccess file.

#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden or custom image option
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?entergeeks.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ – [NC,F,L] 

Conclusion

There are a number of things you can do to Boost WordPress Speed & Performance. By following these tips, you can improve your website’s speed and performance.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below.