Speed has long been somewhat of an issue for WordPress users. While this platform makes it relatively easy to create a professional website, the tools that come with this kit can easily slow down your website when they are used incorrectly.
Unlike options like Wix or Squarespace, WordPress won’t manage your optimization for you, and this means that you have to do all of the work to make sure that your site is running as fast as it possibly can. To help you out with this, this article will be exploring some of the best ways to optimize your WordPress site to make sure that it is running as quickly as possible.
Speed Measuring Tools
Before you can start working on your website speed, you need to be using tools that will help you to determine how quickly it is running. There are a lot of tools like this around the web, and it can be worth making use of more than one to ensure that you get the best idea of how well your website is performing. GTMetrix is a popular choice, as it makes use of Google Pagespeed and YSlow, giving you a very accurate idea of the speed of your website. Alongside this, many developers also choose to use Lighthouse for their website speed checks.
Caching Plugins
There are a lot of caching plugins available for WordPress nowadays, providing you with a wide variety of options when you’re looking for ways to make sure that your website is running as quickly as possible. Plugins like this can be used to cache your website, along with providing you options that will help you to deliver your files in the best possible ways. It can be quite daunting when you first start with plugins like this, though there are a lot of guides around the web that can help you out.
Starting with caching plugins usually requires a little bit of experimentation. Every WordPress installation is different, and this means that you need to tailor your caching to work directly with your website. This will take some time, and you will need to run speed tests whenever you make changes to your caching plugin to make sure that you are seeing meaningful improvements. This will be time-consuming, but it will give you the chance to make big steps with your work and will provide you with a clear metric to ensure that you aren’t working towards nothing.
Plugin Hygiene
Plugins can have a serious impact on the speed of a WordPress website, and many people find themselves letting their site become overrun with plugins that aren’t being used. You should always work hard to limit this, removing plugins that you don’t use and keeping the ones you are using up to date. You can find plugins that can handle this work for you, though it will often be worth working to find ways to handle this manually to avoid the impact of having another plugin installed.
CDNs
Content delivery networks provide an excellent way to make sure that your website is running as fast as possible. Rather than just using your own service to deliver content to users, CDNs like Cloudflare will provide your data from services across the world. This can have a very positive impact on your website speed, while also ensuring that you don’t have to worry about overloading your website when a lot of people visit it. This will have a massive impact on your loading times, though this isn’t always reflected by speed checkers.
Why Bother?
Website speed is incredibly important for any website, and there is one clear reason for you to work on this. Any SEO agency will tell you that speed is one of the most crucial elements to push for when you are trying to improve your position on search engines like Google, and this means that you have to work extremely hard to ensure that you get what you want out of platforms like this. Of course, alongside this, having a fast website will also improve the user experience and make your visitors happier.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of making your WordPress site run as fast as possible. This process can take some time, but it will be well worth it for your users and their experience on your website.
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