As per the announcement by Google, page speed is a ranking factor for sites in the search engine part. Today it is a hot topic in the market. So let us discuss what speed optimization is and factors affecting the speed of any website.
What is the meaning of page speed optimization?
Speed optimization is a measure to understand the loading time for a website from the hosting server. Speed optimization is a foremost factor for a good website. A speedy website is beneficial in two ways. The site’s speed is a ranking factor, and the second one is that users are more comfortable working with plain and fast-loading websites.
How to Optimize WordPress Websites?
Factors affecting the performance of the Word Press website:
Best Hosting Plan
It is a significant and critical factor for your website. So choosing the right hosting plan is will help you to improve the speed of your website. Web hosting determines your website’s loading time and capacity to handle the traffic and speed of the website. Poor quality of hosting plan may hamper all your website performance enhancement efforts. Even you apply all other speed optimization techniques; your website is still slow with poor hosting plans. So doesn’t compromise for hosting plans; select a good and trusted one.
Image compression
We create eye catchy images using Photoshop; however, these image file sizes are bigger. If we upload such bulky photos on our website, the loading time is more, and hence the website will take more time to load. It is recommended to compress the image size using different plugins like Optimole, WP Smush, Webp, EWWW Image Optimizer etc.
Website Cache
Use advanced caching mechanisms with a caching plugin.
Using WordPress caching plugins is the best practice to optimize the speed of your website.
Caching is a technical term, but it’s easy to implement on a WordPress site. W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, WP Super Cache, an advanced cashing mechanism like Varnish, could help you to implement the cashing and ultimately improve the speed of the website.
Deactivate or uninstall plugins
WordPress themes come with a bunch of plugins. Unwanted and unused plugins may add huge junk to your website and increase the size of back up. So it is always recommended to uninstall the unused plugins. This is a regular activity; you should always check for new plugins and not used plugins. You can use Zapier or IFTTT web services to schedule tasks and reduce the burden on the website and server.
Use Content Delivery Networks {CDN}
The site loading speed varies depending on the locations of the user. If you are away from the hosting site, the speed differs. There are many content delivery networks in the market, which helps you optimize the website loading speed and improve your website’s performance. Cloudflare and MaxCDN are some great content delivery networks.
Database Cleanup
It is always best practice to delete the unwanted data from your word press. Delete the spam files; junk files spam comments, unwanted drafts and old unwanted plugins. Try to reduce the database for better performance.
To summarize, lowering the website loading time is very important for user experience improvement. High performance and speedy websites are essential for a better ranking of your website.
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