The speed of your website is crucial, and there are two reasons it matters. First, it affects your SEO rankings because search engines amerce slow websites. Second, website users have a short attention span, so they are bound to leave your website if they find it slow. Here are four ideas to help you speed up your WordPress website.
- Choose a Swift Web Host
When visitors reach a page on your website, their browser requests your server to display the page. The duration it takes for the server to answer the query significantly determines how long they must wait. Although your website may be very efficient, the web server’s performance is critical in determining how fast a visitor’s query is handled.
Before selecting a web host, first, determine the hosting you need. Shared hosting is relatively slow and cheaper, but dedicated WordPress hosting is faster, performs better, and is a bit more costly. So it would help if you choose between cost and speed.
- Use a Solid, Lightweight Theme
Most of the default WordPress themes are lightweight and swift. The reason is that they keep the functionality and features simple. But this is not the case with some inflated, drag-and-drop frameworks that are bundled with features but are guaranteed to slow down your website. So, use premium frameworks that are not only fast but easy to customize.
- Use a Content Delivery Network
A content delivery network (CDN) is pivotal in speeding up your WordPress website. CDNs are simply a collection of servers distributed geographically to facilitate fast delivery of internet content. One benefit a CDN offers is speedier loading for your website, irrespective of your website’s design. Some of the best CDN options include Cloudflare and CloudwaysCDN.
- Reduce Image Sizes
Images contribute significantly to the size of a web page. The idea is to keep the size of the pictures at a minimum without losing the quality. You may decide to manually reduce your image sizes using Photoshop or any other graphic design tools; however, this process will take too long. The good news is that there are plugins you can use for image optimization, and they include:
- Optimole
- EWWW Image Optimizer
- WP Smush
Using any of the above plugins will significantly reduce image sizes and enhance the speed of your website without spending lots of time.
The most notable gain of reducing your website loading speeds is that it will substantially augment the user experience of your site visitors. So, use the above ideas to help you make your WordPress website faster.
