Today’s internet users have an alarmingly small attention span. They require instant availability of information. These users leave websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Hence, highlighting the importance of having a speedy website with the fastest loading speed.
There are many reasons you need to optimize your WordPress hosting for better speeds and performance. The most important is retaining visitors and positively impacting your website’s search engine rankings. You can follow many methods, including optimizing plugins to speed up your website.
In this article, I will explain how to use your WordPress hosting to have a faster website with better performance. Stick till the end of this article as it has valuable information regarding website success!
Why is Speed Optimization Important?
Do you think a 0.5-second difference in load time makes an impact? It does make an impact for multiple reasons. Both your website’s readers and search engines care about such small differences. For example, if your website has the same quality of content as a competing site but loads faster, then Google will rank your website higher.
According to a popular internet survey, over 50% of readers exit a webpage if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This makes speed optimization crucial for a website. The general way of speeding up your website is by cleaning its cache and other things. However, you also need to optimize your hosting for optimal performance.
A faster website also means your conversion rates will be significantly higher. Customers will enjoy the faster loading speeds and they will successfully make purchases without facing any speed problems. Keep reading as I am going to talk about ways to improve the speed of your website.
How to Improve Your WordPress Website’s Speed?
WordPress experts have devised several different techniques that will improve your website’s speed. This includes managing cache, CDNs, and regular maintenance of your website. There are also quite a few plugins out there that work towards the improvement of your website’s speed. These plugins mainly improve the Core Web Vitals of your WordPress site.
Here is how you can ensure your WordPress website is optimized for the best speed.
1. Select the Right Web Hosting
The WordPress gurus emphasize a strong foundation i.e. web hosting provider. If you select a web hosting provides swift services, your website will automatically have better speed. For instance, WPX Hosting is one of the fastest available options that is specifically tailored for WordPress websites.
I use it myself and it has never let me down. So, when you are building a new website or trying to improve an old one, try getting a hosting like WPX. Its performance and resources are optimized for WordPress. Hence, your website loads faster automatically. But there is still room for improvement, which you can cover by implementing these next techniques.
2. Optimize Images & Videos
Your website’s images and videos impact its loading time significantly. If you have uploaded fully HD PNG images to your site, the loading speed will be super slow. You can either manually convert your images to.WebP or use some optimizing plugins for this purpose. And yes, use sites like TinyPNG to make these images even lighter.
There are two benefits to this: 1 — it takes less storage, 2 — it loads faster. So, optimize your website’s media items to reduce the burden on your web pages and make them load faster.
3. Enable Browser Caching
The simplest way to load your website faster upon revisits is to enable browser caching. Once you turn this feature on, your website’s frequently accessed webpages’ resources will be stored in the browsers of those visitors. Whenever they revisit your website, the loading speed will be reduced by a mile.
You can configure the server settings of your WordPress site’s hosting to enable this. Or there is always the option to install external plugins which will do the job for you. Most popular caching plugins do this and there is no need for any technical knowledge if you install one of those plugins.
4. CDNs Across the Globe
The use of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) has become quite common these days. Basically, a CDN distributes your website’s static content across servers located in major parts of the globe. This makes your content easily accessible to anyone from any part of the world. Since the distance between the server and the website visitor is smaller, your website will load much faster.
Popular web hosting providers such as WPX Hosting have their own CDNs. But you can also utilize the services of external providers. Whatever you choose, utilizing a CDN in general is considered a great way of reducing the load time of your website.
5. Speed Optimization Plugins
Different speed optimization plugins are available to speed up WordPress websites in general. Some of the popular ones include Perfmatters and WP Rocket. These plugins mainly work on the Core Web Vitals of your website and optimize them for faster speeds. Overall, a speed optimization plugin can speed up your website by up to 30%.
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Some speed optimisation plugins manage caching while others work on clearing up junk/unused code from your website. It is important to choose the right optimization plugin to speed up your website and improve its performance.
6. Lightweight Plugins and Themes
The theme you use on your website is a major factor in determining its speed. It can reduce the loading time or increase it to an unbearable level. That’s why it is advised to install themes that are lightweight and do not put a heavy burden on your hosting server. Use themes that have simpler code and a clean backend.
Similarly, it is also necessary to have a look at the size and performance impact of your website’s plugins. Always choose plugins that do not take up a lot of space and are lightweight in code workload.
7. Regular Site Maintenance
All websites face technical issues and the ideal solution to this is regular maintenance. You need to have a look at the health of your website and the items installed on it. The plugins, themes, and add-ons can be broken down for several reasons. Hence, it is important to check if everything is working properly.
The regular maintenance also ensures your website’s visitors don;t run into any difficulties when engaging with your website. For business websites, regular maintenance is utmost necessary to ensure maximum conversions and prevention of any inconveniences to potential customers.
8. Analyze and Monitor Site Speed
You also need to keep in check the speed and performance of your website through different analysis tools. Use popular analysis add-ons and plugins to determine the loading speeds and other performance metrics of your website. When you keep track of these and monitor them regularly, you will be able to figure out different strategies that make improvements.
Having data about your website’s performance in numbers is also a great thing in general. But you should do it to analyze which techniques work best for the optimization and improvement of your website’s speed and performance.
9. Technical Aspects
There are some technical things that you need to manage for your website to be optimized fully. Some examples include minimizing HHTP requests (Use optimization plugins for this) and caching mechanisms. The backups and regular updating of your website’s software also have some say in speed optimization.
Consult a WordPress expert if you aren’t that familiar with its framework. But make sure you work on the technical aspects of your WordPress site as it is one of the key factors in optimizing it for better speeds.
Wrap Up
The speed of any website is key to its success. Whether it is a visitor or a search engine bot, the speed that your website takes up to load will interest anyone. Slower loading speeds mean your website is in trouble while faster speeds are a sign of success. Not all websites are fast to begin with, which is why people optimize their websites using many techniques.
In this article, I explained some of the best ways to improve the speed and overall performance of your website. The key is to have simpler themes and plugins, optimized media and images, and cleaner code on the backend. A website is not truly optimized if it does not have the latest updates installed. Similarly, every website needs to have size and format (WebP) optimized images for faster loading speeds.
To conclude, a WordPress expert can utilize different techniques to make a website faster. I went through 9 of the most effective ways that reduce the loading time of your website. These will also help your website in search engine rankings and visitor satisfaction.
If you still have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I will respond to them!