I often hear people saying that WordPress sites are slow. Well, that really depends on how people implement their WordPresss sites. It’s actually a matter of how much you want to spend for it. Imagine 2 cars of the same brand. One looks cool and runs fast, while the other looks old and clunky. You can easily say that it really depends on how it’s maintained – that equates to how much people spend. It’s a fact.
In our previous article named, WordPress Slow Loading, we have raised several reasons why a WordPress site loads slow. From there, you can already pick-up solutions to speed up loading time of your WordPress site. But, if you’re interested in learning the solutions based on issues raised, read on.
QUALITY HOSTING
No matter how big or small your WordPress website is, we firmly recommend that you forget subscribing to any of the shared hosting out there. A few dollars more would give your site’s loading time a hefty boost. So, what are the alternatves to shared hosting?
1. VPS (Virtual Private Hosting)
You’re provided access to one virtual environment on a physical server. With VPS, you have exclusive access to resources, such as: CPU (virtual CPU), memory and diskspace. Unlike shared hosting (that shares all resources), other sites on the same server won’t have any impact on your VPS account because VPS simulates a dedicated server. Start with the basic VPS. There are VPS hosting providers that automatically scales up, too, should your site goes beyond the threshold.
If you know nothing about (or have a short knowledge of) maintaining a VPS, go for managed VPS.
2. Cloud Hosting
You’re provided access to one logical server. Contents of that logical server is replicated on the host’s various servers across the globe. So, if a visitor is from the US, the host’s US server (nearest to the visitor) will deliver the pages to the visitor’s browser. It’s redundant, scaleable, reliable and flexible. Some cloud hosting company sets up cloud hosting similar to shared hosting, wherein websites on one cloud server shares all resources. Of course, it’s better to have a VPS cloud.
Generally, cloud hosting are more expensive than VPS.
If you know nothing about (or have a short knowledge of) maintaining cloud hosting, go for managed cloud hosting.
SOFTWARE UPDATE
A WordPress site is composed of several software behind the scene. Be sure to update each of the following to its latest version so that your WordPress website would load faster:
- PHP – update it from you cPanel or via SSH.
- WordPress – the CMS itself.
- Plugins and themes- if the CMS is updated, plugins might stop working smoothly. So, it needs to be updated, too.
OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE
Here, optimization could mean several factors towards better loading performance:
- Correctness of all pages. Errors on a page could result to delayed loading of the page, and most often prevents full load towards seemingly not loading it at all. So, be sure that the pages are error-free.
- Minimize scripts. When we say scripts, we’re pertaining to programming codes like Javascript. Codes can be compressed using minifiers.
- Minimize stylesheets. CSS can be compressed, too, using minifiers.
- Optimize images for web. Though WordPress automatically creates large, medium and thumbnail versions of the images you upload and use whatever version, it’s always a good practice to optimize your images before even uploading it. Why so, in case you have no option to choose which version to use (depends on the theme or method), at least the original image as your only possible choice is optimized for fast loading. Optimization of images means creating a copy having a small filesize (not dimension), 72dpi, without sacrificing much of the quality. There’s no formula to that, the idea is the less the filesize, the faster it loads.
- Animations/Motion Effects – Javascripted animations or motion effects doesn’t affect page load, but it affects performance when viewed on low to average computers having low to average internet access. So, be sure that designers/develpers test it on average computers with average internet bandwidth. That way, you’re guaranteed that it’ll work well with high performance setup (high-end computes with high internet bandwidth). On mobile, try to avoid effects as much as possible.
- Cache Plugin – WordPress sites are dynamic. Dynamic pages are slower to load as compared to static pages due to more processes involved before delivering the contents to your browser. Cache plugins creates “static” versions of your dynamic pages and those static pages are served instead of dynamically created ones.
- Prevent overuse of too much plugins and/or all-in-one plugins. These increase security vulnerability in your site, eat up storage space, adds up entries to your database, and affects loading performance of your site. Use only those plugins that you think are really necessary.
Optimization is usually handled by developers/designers. Be sure that the above are addressed before accepting/considering it as completed.
CONCLUSION
There’s always a solution to everything. What is important is for you to know the solutions. There may be others not mentioned, but the solutions above will definitely boost your website’s loading performance, guaranteed. Good luck!