A fast WordPress website is the key to new and potential businesses. If you have been around the online business circuit for a while, you would have probably understood this. More than half of internet users bounce when a site takes way too long to load.
Google reports have recommended that a website should take about one to three seconds to load. A bounce rate of 32% is observed when a website goes from one to three seconds to show its landing page performance.
WordPress is a popular tool in recent times that many online businesses have sought aide from. WordPress offers a multiverse utility when it comes to website hosting and designing.
More and more online business aspirants seek to WordPress for their website hosting and designing. The best part is that it does not require a predisposed knowledge of coding or programmatic. A major contributor to its success is this very fact.
A WordPress website might have some troubles with speed if not taken care of a few vital points. WordPress comes with various themes, plug-ins, media, and so on to enhance the look and feel of your website.
But the flip side of the coin is that they exert a load on the speed. Now that is not good news. Your very motive to have gone for WordPress website is so that your novel business kickstarts with minimal costing.
Would speed-enhancing burst that bubble? Absolutely not. What you need to do is ensure some very basic practices and tweaking which will get your site running ablaze!
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Table of Contents
Speed Tests
In order to actually know how much work your site needs for speed enhancement, it is first important to know where its speed lands.
Try adding an additional plug-in and run a speed test through many credible websites that offer the service for free. These websites just require your site URL and an e-mail ID where they can send in the results.
Basis which you can then think of the steps to be taken as you go ahead.
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Delete abandoned plug-ins and themes
It is a great practice to keep the plug-ins and themes up to date. But it is also very crucial to get rid of the unused ones. Not only would it eradicate security threats but also improve site performance as they take up space.
In order to delete them, you first need to deactivate them. Then finally delete it from the inactive plug-ins list.
You can also delete themes following a very simple step, go to Appearance > Themes, and then delete the themes that you don’t need.
ALSO READ : What Is Softaculous & How It Can Enhance Your Business
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Clean up media
The media takes up some space in the WordPress site. Often more than what is used, it is the unused one that takes up space and hampers the website speed.
You can clear the media by simply using a Media clear plug-in or by following these steps: Add Media > Media Library > Unattached and delete the files that are no longer in use.
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Clear up database
Your database gets compact and filled as you go ahead with site activities. The database gets cluttered as it accumulates many wanted and unwanted files. Post revision takes up a lot of space.
For instance, if you have a post of 100 KB with five versions, 500 KB is lost then and there. You can clean up your database manually through phpMyAdmin, or if you are a technical wizard then you can go for installing a plug-in to clear up space. But remember that you remove the plug-in after the job is done.
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Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML
The source codes can pile up and make your website as slow as a snail. The best prevention is that you minify these codes. When you do that, the backend of your site will operate as a lean mean system.
This will remove all unnecessary characters, comments, line breaks, and so on. As a result, you can see that data is transferred fast. When the data transfer is smooth and quick, the website loads faster. There are several top free plug-ins that will help minify the codes.
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Optimize Images
Great images add to the overall appeal to your website. But they might add to the overall load of your website. This results in a lag while loading your website.
Creating an image sight map and being optimal about image usage is a great way to combat the hurdle. You can also add compresses images and add alt texts and titles.
ALSO READ : How To Boost SEO On WordPress Website In 2020
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Limit Comments
Now, this might sound crazy. Aren’t you on the web so that people can access you and leave their comments? Well, yes but consider yourself fortunate if there is an influx of a huge amount of comments on your page. Restricting comments per page can benefit your speed.
If you have to do this, then you can sleep well as your website is really doing well. But a little more caution will do no harm. You can easily restrict the comments by going to Settings > Discussion and then selecting “Break comments into pages box”. You can also add the number to which you want the comments to show up per page.
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Reduce the redirects
Redirects are necessary in some cases if you want the visitor to have a holistic understanding of something. But adding too many redirects can take a toll on your website speed. It would be a good idea to do away with any unnecessary information. Add redirects only where there is an absolute necessity.
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Keep the PHP updated
The PHP must be kept updated to ensure the smooth functioning of the website. An updated PHP means that your website can get the right traction as it won’t take a long time to load. You can do it manually by referring to the user portal.
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Go for lightweight themes
Extravagance is good but not when that is not a priority. Your priority is that you have a website that is fast and for that choosing light and easy to load themes that do not take up much space are the best options.
ALSO READ : 10 Tips To Improve Security Of Your WordPress Website
Ultimately, why do we need good speed for the website? Google in 2018 has gone on record to say that they will rank websites that are fast higher on the results page.
Everybody wants to grab the user’s eye first. If you want to stay ahead in the game, the above-mentioned tactics are like a knight in shining armor for you.
