Whether it’s an e-commerce store or a simple WordPress blog, if it takes ages to load, you are going to lose customers. You might be offering great stuff but a slow website can be a huge turn-off.
You wouldn’t stay on a website that takes more than 5 seconds to load, right? I was exploring Spectrum Internet Plans on their website which worked great. After 10 minutes of window shopping, I opened another website to read a blog. It had a few images that were taking extra time to load. This was an immediate turn off for more.
If your WordPress blog or website has the same issue, you are in trouble. You need to get started on boosting its speed. Not that tech-savvy? No worries, try these simple tips:
Table Of Contents
1: Install a Lightweight Theme
A theme has a number of elements – social icons, sliders, widgets and more. The more shiny elements it has, the heavier the theme becomes. But what’s the point of having such a fancy theme if it takes a long time to load?
To stay safe, pick a lightweight theme. The default themes provided by WordPress are usually the lightest.
2: Reduce the Size of the Images
It’s great that you are using high-quality images but if they have a large size, this could take a toll on page speed. Don’t worry, there is a way to reduce the size of the images without compromising on the quality.
You can also use plugins provided by WordPress itself to reduce the image size. WP Smush, Optimole and EWWW image optimizer are a few to name. Once you use these plugins for reducing the image size, it will boost the speed of your website immediately.
3: Use a Caching Plugin
WordPress offers wordpress cache plugins that can come a long way in boosting the speed of your website. W3 Total Cache is one of them. These plugins make it easier to add caching rules to your website.
4: Cleanup the Database
Every website has some unwanted data. It can fill up a lot of space. To improve the page load speed, you must delete unwanted data from the database.
Get rid of the unwanted content saved in drafts, delete fake users, spam comments and anything else that has occupied space. This will reduce the size of the web files as well as the database. Then, the speed of your WordPress website will improve automatically.
5: Deactivate Unwanted Plugins
I am sure your website has some plugins you no longer use. They could be consuming extra space on your website. Then, there must be some plugins that no longer work correctly. Identify all such tools and plugins and deactivate or uninstall them.
Doing this will drastically boost the speed of your website. You can use a plugin named Query Monitor to identify the plugins that are responsible for slowing down your website. Once you identify them, replace them with the alternatives. This spring cleaning will optimize the speed of your website.
6: Optimize the Homepage
Optimizing the homepage of your website can make it look simpler and organized. You might have some unwanted tools and widgets there. Get rid of all of them.
If there are posts on your homepage, don’t show them in full length, show the first paragraph only. Similarly, reduce the number of images from the homepage. Don’t display too many posts or this could make your website slow.
7: Minify Resources
If there is redundant or unnecessary code in your website’s script, this could affect the behavior of the browser. If the JavaScript, CSS and HTML files of your website are too large, Google will downgrade your website. If there are files larger than 4096 bytes, you must minify them.
How to minify, you ask? WordPress offers plugins for this purpose. Autoptimize and WP Super Minify are some of the best ones. They will handle the process automatically. This should boost the speed page of your website.
8: Don’t Use Multiple Landing Page Redirects
Redirects make a visitor go exactly where you want them to be on your website. They are very useful in boosting sales or increasing the number of downloads. However, if there are too many redirects on your website, this will reduce your PageSpeed score and slow it down.
No matter what type of redirect it is, Google is not a big fan. Even visitors don’t like too many redirects. Ideally, you should have 1 redirect per URL.
Conclusion
The best thing about improving the load time of your website is that it will improve user experience. Visitors will stay on your website and perform the action you want them to perform.
Whether they are using a PC or mobile device, they will have the same experience. That’s what impressed me while looking for Spectrum Phone number. A faster PageSpeed will also boost the SERPs ranking of your website. In other words, you will get the best of both worlds.
