Don't they often say that good things come to those who wait? Well, that's not the case on the internet, where website loading speed is an important factor in conversion and customer satisfaction. Sometimes overlooked, it also has a major impact on SEO performance. That's why WordPress site owners need to take steps to improve it. In this guide, we offer 10 tips to help you optimise the loading speed of your WordPress site.
Measure your website's current performance
Before taking any action, you should first review your current performance. This will enable you to identify any problems and consider corrective measures.
There are numerous tools you can use to evaluate your website's performance. These include GT Metrix, Load Impact, Pingdom Tools, and PageSpeed Insight, among others.
The advantage of using specialised tools is that they provide you with personalised advice on how to remedy the problems they have detected. For greater accuracy and better results, it is advisable to use at least two tools and compare the results.
Choosing a good web host
The host is like the engine of your website. It can decide to do everything possible to ensure your website runs smoothly, or the opposite. There are several hosting solutions available, namely:
- Shared hosting: here, you share your resources with other websites;
- Dedicated hosting: here, you rent a server on your own;
- Virtual hosting: it is the happy medium between shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
Needless to say, the prices for these different types of hosting will vary. Generally speaking, dedicated hosting is the best solution for improving your website's performance.
Optimise images
Images consume a large portion of bandwidth. That is why they should be optimised in order to reduce their appetite. To do this, two actions should be taken:
- Resize images: this should be done before inserting them into the website, which will save your visitors' bandwidth.
- Compress images: this step essentially involves reducing the size of images while preserving their quality. To do this, there are many free tools available, such as tinypng.com.
Optimise CSS files
CSS files are style sheets. They contain information about the design of your WordPress site (colour, font, etc.). CSS files are essential for a site to function properly. The only problem is that they take up a lot of space, which is why it is important to optimise them.
To do this, you can use the WordPress plugin or software such as Clean CSS to compress these files. Be careful, however, as this operation may disrupt the functioning of your website, which is why you should call on an expert in the field to carry out the tests.
Configure a CDN
A Content Delivery Network, abbreviated CDN, is used to store static resources on a WordPress site, such as videos or images. To do this, it uses a server located close to where your site visitors are connecting from.
This will optimise the loading time for information resulting from their query. For example, you can use MaxCDN or CloudFare, which have a large server network.
Remove unnecessary extensions
WordPress is well known for offering thousands of extensions. The direct consequence of this advantage is that its users tend to always want more, which is a serious mistake. What matters in the end is not quantity, but rather quality.
The ideal situation for a well-functioning website would be to minimise the number of plugins used. You can try out several to see which one suits you best. Once you have made your choice, be sure to always remove any plugins that you no longer need.
Selecting or developing a lightweight WordPress theme
This section is for those who do not yet have a website or who wish to change the current theme of their website. Before settling on a particular style, it is important to consider factors such as usability, aesthetics and the weight of the chosen theme.
Keep in mind that the heavier a theme is, the more it will tend to slow down the loading of your site. That's why you should prioritise themes known as Responsive Design, which will allow your platform to display quickly and on all devices.
Update plugins
Updates are usually signalled by notifications, but may also be available via the extension tab. Each update brings a new improvement to your website. So it would be a shame not to take advantage of them.
Updates have the advantage of:
- Fix security flaws and bugs;
- Optimise your website's performance with new features;
- Improve the performance of your pages.
Before proceeding with new updates, you should first back up the old ones.
Enable caching
Once caching is enabled, it will allow you to save your server's bandwidth while reducing the loading time of your website's pages. WordPress widgets are available to help you accomplish this task. Among others, there is WP Rocket, which is highly regarded for its performance.
Optimise your WordPress database
The database is designed to store all content related to your site, such as articles, comments, settings, user pages, etc. When a large amount of data is stored, it will naturally slow down your site.
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