How fast your website can load will directly affect how much it will benefit your business or vice versa. After all, this speed affects everything. From user experience to SEO rankings in search engines. Contemporary customers, visitors to your website, are mostly people with current expectations. Namely, they expect lightning speed. That is, that the page will load in a few seconds. If this does not happen, they quickly leave the site without giving your business a second chance. For websites built on the WordPress platform, the following things will help to solve most performance problems. Correct optimization of the theme, images, as well as code optimization and other elements. Careful optimization will create maximum convenience for users. And this will have a corresponding impact on traffic growth and search engine rankings.
Speed is the Key
Every second of delay in loading your website can, without exaggeration, be a great loss for your business. This is shown by research. It was conducted by Google in 2017. The results were published in a report called The Need for Mobile Speed. They show the following. 53 percent users of mobile phones leave a page if it takes more than three seconds to be loaded. Search engines, including Google, consider website speed in their ranking algorithms. That's why fast loading is no longer just a matter of convenience but has become a significant competitive advantage.
At first sight, without deepening the topic, optimizing a WordPress theme may seem like a daunting task. Yet, by implementing small but strategically important changes, you can greatly improve your site's performance. This will include choosing lightweight themes, properly configuring plugins, and cleaning up the database.
At the same time, the effective operation of the site depends not only on the software. It also depends on the devices you use for administration. If your Mac is slow, it will in most cases affect your ability to quickly solve technical problems, update plugins, or download important resources for your WordPress site. Mac performance issues are often caused by system overload or potential threats that affect the device. There are various ways to get rid of such problems. One of them is to use Mac optimization tools. But before you use those, make sure to log out of iCloud on Mac and log in again to check if you still remember your password (otherwise, you are risking losing your data). Optimization tools can help you get rid of unnecessary files and optimize your system to the maximum capacity. They can also test the system for malware. This is especially important when you manage large projects and work with large resources. After making sure your device is stable, you can focus on the major aspects of your WordPress site optimization. For example, working with graphic content and more. We'll look carefully at it.
Image Optimization
This optimization is one of the main ways to increase the loading speed. The reason is that large image files in most cases can slow down the website. To compress files without losing quality, we recommend using the following tools.
- TinyPNG
- Imagify
- ShortPixel
It is also worth converting images to the modern WebP format. It will give you a smaller file size compared to JPEG or PNG. Most modern browsers support this format.
Another effective method is to use lazy loading. This technology allows you to load images when the user scrolls the page to their location.
Adaptive images
Instead of loading one large image, a website can load smaller versions for mobile devices. This will save traffic and speed up loading on mobile devices.
Choosing the Best Theme
The theme you use on WordPress also plays an essential role in website speed. Heavy, multifunctional themes with a lot of unnecessary elements often slow down the work. We recommend choosing lightweight themes that are designed with performance in mind and have minimalist code. In particular, the following are suitable.
- GeneratePress
It has minimal code. It is perfect for creating both simple blogs and complex business websites. This is a very flexible solution that allows you to customize most elements of the site.
- Astra
It has a very lightweight code and minimalistic design. This allows you to maintain high performance. Astra supports integration with popular page builders. In particular, Elementor and Beaver Builder.
- Neve
It supports responsive design. This ensures a good look on any device. Due to the small file size and efficient use of caching, it is ideal for those who want to have a high performance website.
Evaluating a theme by performance criteria
- Look for themes that use only the necessary code to display the page, avoiding excessive scripts and styles.
- Make sure the theme is mobile-friendly. This is important not only for users but also for SEO. For example, Google uses the mobile version of a website for indexing.
- Some themes are optimized to work with caching plugins. This helps to reduce page loading time. Choosing a theme that is compatible with such plugins will help in speed optimization.
Code Optimization
To optimize your website, it is important to minimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files. This includes:
- removing unnecessary spaces and comments,
- combining small files.
Use the Autoptimize or WP Rocket plugins. They help to automate this process. Minification not only speeds up loading, but also reduces the load on the server.
- When optimizing JavaScript, set up asynchronous script loading or delayed loading. This will allow the browser to load important elements of the page without waiting for all the scripts to load.
- In addition to minimizing, try to remove critical CSS. It will allow the visible part of the page to load faster while other styles are loading in the background. WP Rocket has a Critical CSS feature. It can automate this process.
- After minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files, check how the site works on different devices and browsers. This is the only way to make sure that no design or functionality element is broken.
Reduce Plugins . Enable Caching
Each plugin on your site adds additional load to the server. Remove unnecessary or outdated plugins. Instead, use only those that are really necessary. To analyze their effectiveness, you can use the Query Monitor plugin. It will show you which extensions have the biggest impact on website performance.
Caching is a highly effective technology for lowering page load times. It enables you to save a static version of the pages that the server displays to users. This means there is no need for generating them again. The most effective caching plugins are WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache.
In addition to plugins, ensure that caching is enabled at the browser level. This allows you to save specific site elements on the user's device, decreasing the amount of server requests.
Content Delivery Network. Cleaning the Database. Choosing a Quality Hosting Service
A Content Delivery Network is a global network of servers that keep copies of the content you provide. Using a CDN substantially increases website speed. When users open your website, they receive data from the nearest server. This reduces the loading time. Popular services include Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, and StackPath.
Sometimes slow website performance can be caused by a large number of unnecessary database records. So don't be afraid to delete outdated posts, spam, and other unneeded info. This will lower the size of the database while increasing the speed of the website. You can use the WP-Optimize plugin to automate this procedure.
The quality of hosting has a direct impact on the performance of your website. Inexpensive hosting with low resources can be a bottleneck even for a well-optimized website. Use hosting services that specialize in WordPress. Kinsta, SiteGround, and Bluehost are some of the best.
Summary
As you've seen, optimizing a WordPress site for speed and efficiency is a multistep process. It entails working with the theme, pictures, code, plugins, and server configurations. However, by applying the principles discussed above, you will be able to develop a website that satisfies modern performance standards while also providing an excellent user experience. So, don't delay optimization to be successful in the digital world.
