A slow loading website will turn your potential customers away. Google will also rank your website lower if it loads slowly. A website should load in 5 seconds or less. WordPress websites will load a little slower. About 7 seconds or less is best for a WordPress website. If your WordPress website is loading slowly, there are things that can be done to speed your website up. You can use Pingdom’s tool to check the speed of your website.
- Enable website caching. Whenever you visit a website, certain elements are stored in a cache, so the next time you visit the site it can easily access those parts and load much faster. With caching, instead of your browser having to download every single resource, it only has to download a few of them. Installing a good caching plugin will help a lot. Caching plugins often conflict with other plugins and themes, so it might take some trial and error to find the one right for your website.
- Delete plugins and themes that you are not using. Check to see which plugins are hogging your resources and replace them with similar plugins that do the same thing, but do not use up as much resources. By deleting plugins and themes that you are not using, you will also ease the load on your resources.
- Optimize your images by reducing the file size of your images. In most cases, your images should be no larger than 900 pixels in height or width. Install a plugin that will reduce the file size of your images without sacrificing the quality of the image.
- Minimize the code on your website. Sometimes your website’s code can get a little bit messy. When this happens your site will take much longer to load. Some caching plugins have an option for minimizing your website for you.
- Optimize your WordPress database for speed. Some caching plugins will also have an option for optimizing your website’s database.
- Check with your host to find out which version of PHP your website is using and upgrade it to PHP7 if possible.
- Analyze your content. While sliders and images that slide in or fade in look visually appealing, they will tax your resources. Too many images on the page will also slow the loading time. It will be a balancing act, but cutting out some of the fancy features without taking away too much visual appeal will also help to speed up your website.
Use these tips to speed up your website. Some of these tips will need to be done on a regular basis so that your website does not become slow again. Need help with your slow website? We are here to help. Please contact us and we will help you speed up your website.