Sometimes, maintaining the speed of WordPress website may be challenging but it is very important. Most of the users don’t like it if the site’s speed is slow. It is also the Search Engines ranking factor.
If your running a WordPress website then Improving the speed of your site should be on your priority list. If your site speed is slow or very slow then it may impact you in many ways.
A website speed may impact in the following ways:
User Satisfaction
After content, the second most important thing is the speed of WordPress website. If your content is good but the speed of the site is very slow then your visitor may get frustrated or dissatisfied.
In this situation, users may leave your site and very rare chance users will come back. They may create an image in their mind that this site not good and always works slow.
Search Ranking factor
The slow-speed of the site may impact your site’s ranking in the search engines. The speed of a site is a Google’s ranking factor.
If your content is good and speed is slow then your site may not get a good rank in comparison to a site in which content and speed both are good.
Bounce Rate
The slow speed of the WordPress website may also impact the bounce rate. If the site’s speed is slow then the chance of bounce rate may be high and if the speed of a site is good then the chance of bounce rate is low.
It is always recommended that keep your site’s speed and contents good. Because these two factors play an important role in bounce rate. That’s why it is very important to improve your page load speed.
Conversion Rate
Slow speed also impacts the conversion rate. If you have an eCommerce site or selling affiliate products, you must maintain your site speed as best as possible. The conversion rate depends on speed a lot. If the exit rate will be high then your conversion rate will be low.
Speed Analysis
If your site speed is good then it is very good for you. But if you want to improve your site then first of all find out the issues. Why your site speed is not up to the mark? Find out the analysis.
There are many speed testing sites where you can check your site speed. Some of them are as follows:
You can use any tools as per your choice and convenience. Check your site speed before optimizing the speed and when you optimize it then check again to see the difference.
Ways to Improve Speed
There are many ways to improve the speed of the site. However, it will totally depends on the issues, why the speed is slow. It may vary site to site. Every site may have different issues.
However, in this blog i am discussing some important tips which may help you.
1- Plugin Management
If you are running a WordPress website, then I can guess you may be using some WordPress plugins. It is very important that you have a cross-check on your plugins management. Plugins management mean:
- How many plugins have you installed?
- How many plugins have you installed, Activated but not important for you?
- How many plugins have you installed but inactive because of no use?
- Installed plugins are good enough or not?
- Does there any plugins which make your site slow?
- Does there any plugins conflicts?
I think as a website owner you should know all these and manage well. Somewhere, there may be any plugins that might be slowing your site speed. If so then you need to take action.
Install Necessary Plugins: It is recommended that install only plugins you’re required for your site. Installing unnecessary plugins might not be good for your site’s speed.
Remove Unused and Unwanted Plugins: If you have some plugins which are not in use and inactive. And you are sure that you will not use it in the future then you should remove these plugins.
Install Reputed Plugins: Whenever, you install any plugin, should check its rating, reputation and number of installation. Installing unreputed and from unknown resources may put your site at risk.
Note: Be careful while installing, activating, or removing plugins. I will advise you that please take a backup of your site before you do any changes to your site. You should test any changes to your site in the staging environment before you do the final publish.
2- Optimize Images to Improve Speed of WordPress Website
Optimizing images is another most important step to improve your WordPress site speed. You can optimize your images through photoshop, or any other good software or site which you like the most and convenient for you. You can also install a plugin to optimize your images.
You can do image optimization before uploading to the site or after uploading images to the site. It completely your choice.
You choose any way to compress images but you should make sure that you are not compromising image quality. Image is the most important part of your site and its quality should be good.
3- WordPress Theme
The selection of a theme may a challenging part. But a WordPress theme also has a role in the speed of your WordPress site. If your WordPress Theme is Lightweight and optimized for speed then it will be good.
But if your theme is very heavy, complex, and not optimized then it may slow the speed of the site. If want your site to load fast then it important that you select your theme with care.
WordPress Theme: Ultimate Guide to Select a perfect Theme
4- Faster Hosting
Your hosting service is a very crucial part of the speed of your site. You do everything on your site to improve your site’s speed but if your server is not good, your all efforts may be wasted.
That’s why you should have a good server. Make sure you are using a quality server. The server is well equipped and your site is hosted on good resources. If you are a beginner or not having a budget for dedicated hosting then any good shared hosting might be ok for you.
But in case your site is an established one and or you don’t have any budget problem then you should avoid shared hosting. You should also check that your hosting service has the latest version of PHP because it also play role in the speed of a site.
Following blog may be helpful for you:
Hosting: 11 Tips to Select the Best WordPress Hosting Plan
5- Install a Good Caching Plugin
Installation of a good caching plugin can help you a lot to boost your site speed. W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, Autotomize and WP Rocket are some popular cache plugins.
Conclusion
The above tips are not the only things which you should do to improve the speed of WordPress website. You can also work on the following areas to improve the site speed :
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Optimize External Fonts
- Optimize your site for Mobile Device
- Minify Codes
- Enable Gzip Compression
- Combine CSS and java Files
- Keep Your Site Up to date.
But we careful while doing anything above. You should test your site on staging environment. You should also have a backup of your site before doing any changes in your site.
