Binge watchers will know the annoyance that buffering brings with itself.
Writers will be aware of the anger that a slow speed WordPress causes.
Gossipers will think of delayed voice as the utter source of frustration.
While buffering can be fixed by subscribing to a well-reputed internet service provider, delayed voice or any distortion in the phone can be catered to as well. Services like AT&T Internet ensure that the latter is been taken care of. As far as WordPress is concerned, speeding it up is not an issue as well. There are many ways to enhance the speed of the site. First, you need to figure out the root cause of the sluggish site and fix it accordingly.
Host Matters
A website host is a home for all that you enter on your website. It is the place where all your data and images reside. Hence, opting for an efficient host is essential. Many start-ups would opt for a shared host to save the cost of subscribing to an individual one. However, they fail to understand the cost at which the free or cheaper host is coming. A shared host site will affect the speed of your website.
Moreover, the website will experience frequent ‘down time’ episodes when the host will not be able to entertain the excessive traffic at certain times. A smart move would be to invest in a managed WordPress hosting service that would give an optimized configuration to operate your WordPress on.
This will help you in the long run as managed hosting companies offer automatic backups and advanced security for your website. Although it will be heavy on your pocket once you invest in a managed WordPress hosting site, the investment will be worth it.
Pay Attention to the Theme/Framework
Talking of frameworks, opt for a simple and a lightweight one. The flashy themes with all the widgets, shiny elements and sliders tend to be very appealing and attractive. But they cause more harm to the website than good. They slow down the speed of WordPress bringing it down to a crawl.
Moreover, the high page size should be avoided as well as it brings about the same damage to the website. Till date, the Twenty Fifteen WordPress theme is the fastest and the best one to use. It is lightweight and does not slow down the speed of your website. Hence, making it a suitable choice.
Optimize Images
Images make a considerable contribution when it comes to an increase in the page size. Hence, it is important to reduce their size without compromising on quality. While it may be tiring to optimize the size of every image individually, there are plugins that perform the job for you automatically. So, you do not have to go through the hassle of reducing the size of or editing each image.
Prominent plugins like WP Smush and EWWW Image Optimizer are the best ones to choose from. This will enable you to reduce the size of images you are uploading on Website automatically while maintaining a high speed of the website.
Optimize Homepage
You need to optimize your homepage to ensure you eliminate the unnecessary clutter. Extra widgets and posts will only slow down the loading speed of your website and irritate the viewers. A couple of rules to go by when optimizing your homepage are:
- Excerpts over full posts
- Reduce posts
- No unnecessary widgets
- Eliminate inactive plugins
As they say, less is more. Well, it holds true in this case as well. Minimize the posts and widgets. Readers love precision. And it will help to increase the loading speed of your website as well.
Optimize Database
Many people are unaware of this feature. But by enabling it you allow the browser to collect files from your database and return them at a fast speed. Amongst all the tools available, the best one to opt for is WP-Optimize plugin. This helps to optimize the database by revising posts, looking out for scams etc. As a result, the viewers can relish browsing through your website without any interruptions or downtime.
Apart from the above-stated methods, some other useful tricks to increase WordPress speed include:
- Using Content Delivery Network
- Disabling hotlinks
- Adjusting Gravatar images
- Turning off pingbacks
- Using CloudFare
You can use all or a combination of the above-mentioned ways. Come up with a customized combination just like AT&T Deals have a combination of various deals. You can choose from the one that suits your needs. Similarly, you are a better judge of your business or website. So, choose from the various options accordingly. However, don’t ignore this issue or consider it any less important.
