So, how fast does your website load? Don’t know? Go to this website here and check it out. I’ll wait.

Were you surprised by the results? Are you wondering why you should care about site speed?

Well, you should care because site speed is a factor search engines look at when ranking websites. Sites that load quickly are seen as delivering a good user experience and Google wants to rank those kinds of websites highest. And we all want to rank well with Google, right?

So, if your website loading time is in double digits, we have some work to do!

Now let’s look at some things we can do to speed up your WordPress website!

Reduce the Size of Your Image Files

Beautiful, sharp images add to the visual appeal of your website, but they can also slow it down. So make sure that you are resizing and compressing every image you use on your website.

First, you want to resize your image. Most images sizes coming from a camera are 4000 to 5000px wide. You won’t need an image that large on your website. If you want an image to be the full width of your website around 1500 pixels will do for most themes.

For blog posts, this can depend on your theme so experiment unless the theme includes documentation with suggested image sizes.

After you have your image resized then you want to compress it. This will remove any unnecessary info from the image while still keeping its quality. I like to use TinyPNG to compress my images before I upload them to my media library. There are also several WordPress plugins that you can use to compress your images after they have been uploaded.

WordPress also creates copies of your images in various sizes that it stores on your database. These extra images are often unnecessary.  Check out this post to find out how to disable this feature.

Clean Up Your Database

Use a plugin like WP-optimize to clean up your WordPress Database. WP-Optimize will remove things like post revisions, spam comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks—all the unnecessary things that take up room and slow down your website.

Only Use Necessary Plugins and Widgets

Are you really using all the plugins and widgets you have installed on your website? It’s a good idea to occasionally go through and audit your plugins and widgets and remove the ones you’re not using. They are just taking up unnecessary space on your website.

Also, do some research on the plugins and widgets you’re using? Are they known for being bloated with unnecessary code and slowing a website down? If so, try to find a lighter weight alternative.

Here’s a list of plugins known for affecting website speed. If you’re using any of these I’m not saying that you have to stop if you really love or need them (I love WooCommerce!). But you might consider looking for an alternative.

Jet Pack is one of the most popular plugins out there but developers hate it because it uses a ton of resources and is full of bloated code. I still use it on my personal blog, but for this website, I’ve found alternatives.

And do try to avoid using plugins for things that can be accomplished with just a bit of code. For example, you don’t need a plugin to add no follow links to your affiliate links. Just add this bit of code to your links instead: rel=”nofollow” and you’re good to go!

Also, look at your widgets that connect to third-party sources. These will also affect your site’s speed. Some examples are the ones that connect to your social media sites like the Facebook Like Box. Now I’m not saying you can’t have those kinds of widgets on your website but be selective.

Instead of having your Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook feeds all featured in your sidebar or website footer, pick the platform you most want to grow and highlight it.

The content you have on your website, including things like plugins and widgets, are a business decision and you need to be strategic about it and only include what will really help you grow.

Install a Caching Plugin

A caching plugin will allow a visitor’s browser to store copies of your site’s pages so that when they revisit your website the browser will load from the cache instead of reloading the whole page. This makes for a faster load time for your visitors.

If you use Lyrical Host* like I do you don’t need to install one. They have already taken care of that for you. If not, check out this post to see a list of some of the best caching plugins.

[socialpug_tweet tweet=”The content you have on your website, including things like plugins and widgets, are a business decision and you need to be strategic about it and only include what will really help you grow. ” display_tweet=”The content you have on your website, including things like plugins and widgets, are a business decision and you need to be strategic about it and only include what will really help you grow. “]

Consider Installing a CDN

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. A CDN is a network of servers placed around the world that help deliver content to users as fast as possible. For example, without a CDN if your website is US based but you have a visitor from India they may experience a very slow load time. But with a CDN that visitor will be served your content from a server in Asia which is closer to where they are so it will be faster for them.

This experiment shows that a CDN can increase a site speed up to 60%!

Cloudflare is considered to be one of the best CDNs and has a free plan for individuals.

Use a Lightweight Theme

Yep. Your theme can have a huge impact on your website’s speed. So before you install or purchase a new one always do your research. Look for reviews and visit websites that use the theme to see how they load.

There are also plugins you can use to minify the HTML, CSS, and Javascript your theme uses. This removes unnecessary characters from your code. Check out Fast Velocity Minify if you’re interested.

Drag and Drop builders are also known for being slow. I do use the Elementor* plugin on my website and it is one of the faster drag and drop builders. I use it with the Hello Theme which is lightweight and was made specifically for Elementor*.

If you’re using a drag and drop builder as well consider if it’s beneficial to you. Does using the builder save you time and stress? If you answered yes and the builder isn’t significantly slowing your website down, then consider it a trade-off and keep using it.

Also, research to see what themes work best with your drag and drop builder. Maybe you can switch out your base theme to a lighter weight one that works better with your builder. If you use Elementor* too here is a list of themes that work well with it.

Upgrade Your Hosting

If you’ve tried all these suggestions but your site is still slow, it’s possible that your hosting is holding you back. This is one area of your business you don’t want to cheap out on.

Most of us will be using shared hosting, so go with a host that knows how to do shared hosting right! Many hosts are known for overstuffing their servers which will affect the speed of the websites hosted there. Be sure to do your homework and pick a hosting service that takes good care of its customers.

I highly recommend Lyrical Host*. They offer managed WordPress hosting that comes with a free SSL certificate, email, and daily automatic backups.

The managed WordPress hosting means that if you have a WordPress related issue their support will help you with that issue. Lyrical Host’s* WordPress hosting platform is dedicated to WordPress only websites so it’s optimized especially for the WordPress platform.

Remember that users and Google have an expectation when it comes to site speed and you want to make sure your website meets that standard. These tips will help you do that!

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