WordPress is a famous content management system and many people use it to create their websites. After creating the website, you should check the speed of your WordPress website as a slow website can hamper visits. Many people do not like to wait long for a website to open.
According to Google, a website should open in less than three seconds. If your website is not opening within three seconds then it means it needs some improvement.
Why is a WordPress website slow?
Speed is very important for any website’s performance and you should make sure that your website does not get slow. However, there are many reasons for a slow website. Some of the reasons can be
- Unreliable hosting is one of the main reasons for a slow website because it results in slow loading time, poor user experience, and inability to deal with high traffic. A website needs a reliable high-performance server to store data and to make sure the website loads quickly.
- Using too many plugins can also slow down your WordPress website. WordPress is a flexible CMS as it supports a various number of plugins. However, every plugin has its own set of codes and they are executed each time the website loads. This impacts the website’s speed negatively. Moreover, if multiple plugins are being used at once, it makes the website slow.
- During the website-making process, we often choose themes that are very attractive looking without checking the size which in turn can make the website slow.
- If plugins and themes are not properly updated or optimized, it can slow down your WordPress website.
Apart from these reasons, there can be many more reasons that can slow down the website.
How to check if a WordPress website is slow or not?
There are many ways that you can use to check if your website is slow or not. Google PageSpeed Insight and GTmetrix are two very famous tools that you can use to check your website’s performance. Google PageSpeed Insight is a free tool and it analyses a website’s performance based on five metrics one of which is the Speed Index.
To check the performance, you can just simply put your website URL in the search box and the tool will give you a detailed diagnostic report. This report provides you with suggestions that you can use to better your website’s performance.
5 ways to speed up a WordPress website
Now you know the reason for your slow website and how you can check the performance. To tackle this situation, there are several ways to speed up a WordPress website which I have shared 5 ways that you can use.
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The use of the latest PHP version ensures safety
PHP is a very famous open programming language that web developers use to run on a web server. WordPress uses PHP for all websites therefore it is very necessary to use PHP’s updated version for your website. Currently, WordPress has recommended every website owner use hostings that support the 7.4 PHP version or more.
Using the latest PHP version ensures better security along with faster performance.
You can very easily update your PHP version. To do this, first, open your WordPress admin and select the site. After this click on the tools tab. And the PHP Engine menu will open up under which you have to click on modify. Now just select the preferred PHP version and the website will be updated to the latest version.
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Using a good plugin is necessary for website performance
There are multiple plugin options available in WordPress that you can choose from. However, using multiple plugins for a website can slow down the speed. If any plugin is coded poorly it can put stress on the hosting which can result in a slower website.
There are many good plugins available, such as Gutenberg, WP Rocket, BuddyPress, Health Check & Troubleshooting, and so on.
RabbitLoader is also one such plugin that you can use for all of your needs.
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A lightweight theme ensures faster page loading time
Using a lightweight theme is very essential for a WordPress website because the small page size and complex free design ensure the web page loads faster and better user experience. Many of these lightweight pages are very mobile-responsive because they easily adapt to different screens and devices.
Some of the famous lightweight themes are Astra, Neve, Sydney, OceanWP, Hello Elementor, and so on.
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CDN usage betters the website performance
CDN or Content Delivery Network is a server network that is used to store and deliver content. You can store many types of content like images, videos, scripts, styles, infographics, and many more.
The usage of CDN betters the WordPress website’s performance by caching static files and delivering them from nearby networks.
There are many tools available that you can choose for your WordPress website, such as Google Cloud CDN, Cloudflare, Microsoft Azure, Key CDN, and many more.
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Lazy loading optimizes the website performance
Lazy loading means a web browser loads contents slowly instead of loading everything at once. With the help of this, the website gets optimized which means the website will perform much better.
The speed of WordPress website gives users an amazing experience :
As you can see speed of any WordPress website plays a very crucial role in website performance. So, if you want you can use these techniques to ensure that any user has a great experience whenever they open your website.
