Hey, guys. One of my blog readers, Kaushal, recently sent me an e-mail in which he asked me for tips and resources to fix a slow WordPress site. He said he tried everything he could, such as installing a cache plugin and optimizing the database, but was unable to fix his slow website. So, instead of just answering his letter, I thought, why don’t you write a blog post on the subject? This will not only help Kausala, but also many other readers of this blog! So in this post, I’m going to share with you the best tips and resources to help you speed up your slow WordPress site… and it won’t take more than an hour. Just trust me. Just trust me.
Here is an excerpt from Kaushal’s letter:
The reason I’m writing this letter to you is that I’m tired of my slow WordPress page right now. I have tried everything, for example with the WP total cache plugin and database optimization, but the website is still slow. Full charging takes 5 to 10 seconds. I’ve also noticed that your blog lights up quickly. Can you share some tips and tools you can use to speed up your website?
Lump sum
First: Why is the speed of your website important?
Let’s be honest: Nobody likes slow sites. Wait 5 more seconds for the website to load? Probably not. In a world where 5G speeds reach up to 100 Mbps, we are increasingly eager to consume media. We all want it in the blink of an eye! Quick as lightning! Isn’t it? However, the growing demand for faster websites and blogs is no exception.
Advantages of a faster website:
- This improves the user experience – A good user experience helps to retain visitors and make them fans and regular customers.
- This improves conversion – conversions can take any form, such as visitors buying products in your online store or even subscribing to your newsletter. It goes without saying that a slow website can never achieve a high conversion score.
- It is now officially a Google ranking factor – Google recently announced in its blog that your key indicators for life on the web will be a search engine ranking factor from May 2021.
How can I check the download speed of my slow WordPress page?
If your WordPress page seems slow when you download it, it’s a good idea to measure it in numbers. There are two things that together give a bad estimation of the speed of the pages on your WordPress site. This:
- The actual page loading time is the average time (in seconds or ms) it takes for your website to load from the moment your customer’s web browser sends a request to your web host.
- The performance of your site is a measure of the quality of your website in terms of user experience. Technically, it is also an indicator of the number of http requests that your website sends to the customer’s web browser to be fully loaded.
To accurately measure the speed of your slow WordPress site, I recommend two online tools:
Maybe you have heard a lot about PageSpeed Insights from Google. It is a good tool for measuring only the basic measurements of web life, i.e. it does not directly measure the speed at which pages are loaded in seconds, but gives an estimate of the total user experience. There are 3 basic elements that form the basic life on the web:
Since traditional webmasters are now the ranking factor for Google, you need to make sure that your website loads faster, but also that it scores high for traditional webmasters.
At the time of writing this article, the web core of the important account on the homepage of my blog is excellent. I currently have 99/100 points on my mobile phone and 100/100 points on my desktop computer.
I have made many improvements to my blog to achieve such results. I wonder what? And how? I’ll let you know in the next section of this blog post.
10 tips for repairing a slow WordPress site:
Once you’ve noticed how fast the pages load (in seconds) and the basics of the web, it’s time to fix your slow WordPress site by following these tips / tricks / advice. I’m sure it won’t take more than an hour to move them:
1) Check the performance of your hosting
In most cases, it is your host who is responsible for the slowness of your WordPress site. If you subscribe to a shared hosting plan with a reputable hosting provider, no problem! I work on shared hosting with BlueHost myself, and my work on the website is excellent. The problem is that you feel your hosting provider is limiting your bandwidth and performance.
Your TTFB (time to first byte) score is the best measure of your hosting provider’s performance. The FTTB measures the speed at which your web server sends the first byte of data from your server to the customer’s web browser. Any result up to 300 ms is normally considered to be APC worthy. Depending on the location of your server, this rating generally varies from one location to another. If you want to verify your account, please visit the KeyCDN Tools website.
2) Use CDN
The location of your web hosting affects the speed at which pages from different geographical regions are loaded. The greater the distance, the lower the lateral loading speed. For example, if you have a website in New York City, the person who visits your site from Maryland will download pages much faster than the person who visits it from Washington State. Now imagine how this can affect the speed of page loading when someone approaches the page from India. Here comes the CDN (Content Delivery Network)!
Most major CDNs for WordPress, such as MaxCDN and Sucuri, come with a paid subscription. But if you don’t want to spend anything, the Cloudflare CDN is your best choice! I use Cloudflare for this blog, and so far the experience has been pleasant.
3) Make sure you are using the latest version of PHP.
The WordPress content management system is written with PHP as scripting language. When someone tries to access your website, a request is first made to your web server, which then asks the PHP module installed on that web server to deliver the requested website. New versions of PHP come with various security and performance updates. It is therefore important to ensure that your WordPress site regularly uses the latest version of PHP. You can also search for the latest version of PHP available on the official PHP website and then login to your web hosting cPanel account to update it accordingly.
4) Image optimization
The use of large image files is another reason why WordPress sites are slow. They are also often ignored by most webmasters and bloggers. Here are my tips for optimizing the images on the WordPress site:
- Rearrange all photos before they are uploaded
- Provide next generation images in a format such as WebP
Reducing an image can reduce the size of the image file several times, making your WordPress site load much faster. There are two options for resizing images. You can either customize them without a WordPress plugin, or use a good plugin like Imagify (I use it in my blog). Imagine also that all your images are automatically converted to WebP format. If you want to go to option number one, I advise you to resize your images with PicResize, a free online image compression tool.
5) Reduce the number of plug-ins
Plug-ins are another reason why many WordPress sites are slow. When you install and activate a plugin on your WordPress site, it generates code that is added to a file with the theme or functions of your site. This means that more plugins generate even more code to download every time someone tries to access your site. I therefore advise you to determine whether you need plug-ins for your site and to keep them to a minimum. Currently I only use 18 plugins on my website.
6) Optional cleaning CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a computer language used to make your web pages visually more attractive. The shadows and effects of the box may look cool, but excessive use of CSS only increases the load on the web browser. The result: Slow loading speed of the pages. If you want to clean up your slow WordPress site, I advise you to keep the balance between eye candy and performance.
7) WP– Install the base
If you were to ask me to recommend a WordPress plugin capable of instantly speeding up your WordPress page, it would be a WP rocket! It’s a paying plugin, but it’s definitely worth the investment. I use it in my blog, and you can see the results for yourself. Below are the key features of WP Rocket that will help you unleash the true speed potential of your WordPress site:
- Mobile cover
- Reduce CSS and JavaScript files (removes space and comments to reduce file size).
- Combine CSS and JavaScript files (combine these files to limit HTTP requests)
- JavaScript download has been delayed (removes the blocking of JS playback on your website, which may improve the loading time).
- Delayed JavaScript execution (improves performance by delaying the download of JavaScript files prior to user interaction, e.g. by clicking or scrolling the files)
- Lazily downloading pictures/pictures/video recordings
- Preloading the cache, links and fonts
- DNS query pre-selection (can speed up the downloading of external files, especially in mobile networks)
- Database cleaning and optimization
- Integration in the CDN (also integrated in the Cloudflare CDN)
- Checks the WordPress Heartbeat API
I think this is more than enough and much more advanced than any free WordPress cache plugin. I’ve been using WP Rocket on my blog for 5 months and I love it!
8) Investing in a good thematic basis
The WordPress theme should not only look good, but also have a solid architecture. So my advice is not to go from one free subject to another, but to invest your money in a good thematic framework. You can use any WordPress theme frame known as Genesis, Generate Press or Astra. I’ve been a happy user of the Genesis Theme Box for 2 years and I’ve never looked back!
A thematic framework like Genesis is written with a very clear and coherent code. Everything is organized in such a systematic way that it not only provides the necessary speed gains for your slow WordPress site, but it also gives you the SEO privilege you so desperately need!
9) Try MPA
If you want to optimize your WordPress site for mobile users, you should try MPA. This is the acronym for Accelerated mobile pages. It’s an HTML framework that removes unnecessary CSS, JS and code from your website, making it extremely easy and fast to display your mobile visitors. AMP can easily be implemented on the WordPress site with the official AMP plugin. However, I do not use MPA on my website because it is already responsive and optimized for mobile devices. Thanks to the thematic framework of Genesis.
10) Make sure your web pages are as light as possible
It is tempting to integrate all the rich media content into a website, such as using custom fonts, integrating videos, music or even presentations. To monetize your website, you may also be tempted to increase the number of advertising impressions on your site. However, this will have a negative effect on the loading performance of your WordPress site by increasing the number of HTTP requests. So my advice is to keep these visual elements to a minimum and only include them when absolutely necessary.
Is your WordPress site still slow?
If you follow my advice, I’m sure your WordPress site will break all previous speed records. Well, what are you waiting for? Implement these tips on your own website and let me know how you do it!
Show your ❤️ by publishing this article!
Related Tags:
wordpress slow admin,wordpress site speed test,reduce page load time wordpress plugin,wpspeed fix,woocommerce speed optimization,website speed fix,increase website speed wordpress plugin,wordpress speed optimization service,wordpress speed test,wordpress optimization tasks,wordpress speed optimization course,speed up word,why is wordpress admin so slow,wordpress slow response,wordpress site long wait time,why is wordpress so hard to use,took too long to respond wordpress,why is wordpress so slow on bluehost,speed index wordpress,do wordpress plugins slow down website,make wordpress site faster plugin,wpengine site speed,wordpress site analyzer,inline critical assets plugin,wpengine cdn,critical css wp rocket,optimize astra theme,astra blog,gtmetrix speed test,wp rocket plugin,google speed test,blog 10web io,cloudways speed up wordpress,speed up wordpress multisite,slow wordpress admin,increase the wordpress memory limit,wp rocket admin cache,slow backend,wordpress multisite admin slow,wp admin portal slow,wp rocket,website speed test google,cloudflare,cdn,my wordpress site is very slow to load,how to increase wordpress website speed without plugin,why is my wordpress site so slow,wordpress site performance issues,why is wordpress editor so slow