Want to make your WordPress website or blog load faster?
Of course you do. Not only do you want your visitors to have a good experience but search engines like Google love fast loading websites and you can be rewarded with higher search engine rankings and more traffic.
Here are some tips to make your WordPress website load faster…
Know Where You Stand
It feels like your site is taking longer to load than it should but in order to measure your improvements, you need to know where you stand first. Google’s Page Speed test is nice but make sure to head over to GTmetrix for much better analysis and suggestions on what to fix.
TIP: While the grading feature on GTmetrix is important and you want to strive for the highest grade possible, make sure to focus more on getting “Page load time” down as low as you can. Ideally, you want your site to load faster than 4 seconds on average so that visitors don’t bounce off your page before it loads. I have seen very high grades but very long page load time so it’s important to focus on what really counts.
Optimize Images
This applies to any website whether WordPress based or not: optimize your images! You want the smallest file size possible without compromising quality or function. I highly recommend you install the WP Smush.it plugin to automatically reduce image file size as you upload them. You can also go into your media library after installing the plugin to process existing images.
Disable Plugins
Do you really need that plugin? Analyze your current plugins and if you can’t remember why you installed it or if it’s not giving you enough value to warrant the extra load on your site then remove it! Some plugins are essential but ditch the ones that are not. Take it further with a plugin (go figure) that will tell you what plugins are adding the most load on your site: P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler). You will most likely want to remove it after you have used it to help you determine which plugins to get rid of.
Enable Caching
If you ran Google’s Page Speed test then you will likely have seen suggestions about caching your files. The two most popular WordPress cache plugins: W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache I found to be tricky to configure and not all that impressive. They made improvements, but I found Quick Cache (Speed Without Compromise) to be the easiest to setup and the most effective. I switched from WP Super Catch to Quick Cache and improved my page load time from 4 seconds to under 2 seconds on average. That’s a huge improvement!
In addition to a cache plugin, I highly recommend adding the following code to your .htaccess file as described in this article: How to Leverage Browser Caching in WordPress via .htaccess…
# BEGIN EXPIRES CACHING # <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year" ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year" ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month" ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month" ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month" ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month" ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year" ExpiresDefault "access 2 days" </IfModule> # END EXPIRES CACHING #
Enable Compression
Enable gzip compression by adding the following code to your .htaccess file as described in this article: Use GZip Compression on WordPress…
# BEGIN COMPRESSION # <IfModule mod_deflate.c> AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/xml text/css text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml application/xhtml+xml application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rdf+xml application/rss+xml application/atom+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/truetype font/opentype </IfModule> # END COMPRESSION #
Choose Your Theme Wisely
The theme you are running will also have a lot to do with your site’s speed. Some are much more involved and resource intensive that others. There are both sides of the spectrum from the super simply minimal themes to the “in your face let’s load every cool feature and effect we can” themes. I always strive for a good balance between form and function. I have always had good luck finding well balanced themes at ElegantThemes.
Is Your Host Slowing You Down?
The fact is that your web host has a lot to do with how fast your site will load. Shared hosting in general is never going to be as fast as a dedicated server since you are sharing resource with other sites on the server. Some of which might be consuming so many resources that it causes slowness for the other sites on the server. Results can vary drastically and can change quickly. Also, web host’s equipment vary drastically as well. It usually comes down to getting what you pay for so go with the best host and plan you can swing within your budget. For most, a nice speed & features to cost ratio provided by BlueHost does the trick.
Embedded Content
If your site relies heavily on content from external sites such as embedded videos from YouTube, then you will always have some extra load on your website. It’s just another thing you need to decide what is more important and if it’s worth the possible extra toll on the speed of your website.
Need Help?
Head over to my services page for details on my WordPress speed and performance service.
Woah! I’m really enjoying the template/theme of this site. It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s tough to get that “perfect balance” between superb usability and appearance. I must say that you’ve done a fantastic job with this. Additionally, the blog loads super quick for me on Chrome. Superb Blog!
Amazing tips! Works well.