How to Speed Up WordPress

This How.com.vn teaches you how to decrease your WordPress site's loading time.

Steps

A mere 2-second delay in loading time results in an over 4 percent reduction in clicks and revenue per user, and any longer than that increases exponentially the odds that the user will just exit the site before seeing it. Speeding up your WordPress will improve the chances of people staying on your website.^{[1]XResearch source}
2
Set up your home page for quick loading. Your home page is the first thing that people will see when arriving on your WordPress site, so make sure that it doesn't have a bunch of flashy graphics, unnecessary plugins, and posts.
- If your site allows for it, use excerpts instead of full posts to limit the amount of content on the home page.
- Remove any unneeded widgets or plugins.
3
Pay for a quality host. WordPress shared hosting can lead to incredibly slow page load times, especially over the holidays and other high-traffic times. Using a dedicated host will prevent this from happening.
- WPEngine (https://wpengine.com/) is considered one of the best available choices. Just click GET STARTED on their page, click PICK A PLAN, select a plan rate, and enter your information.
4
Use a low-impact theme. You can change your theme from your site's dashboard by clicking the Themes tab, selecting a theme, and clicking Activate this design at the top of the page. Most default WordPress themes are fairly low-impact, meaning that they don't have lots of individual elements that take forever to load. A couple of notable themes include the following:
- Twenty Fifteen
- Thesis
- Twenty Sixteen
- Libre 2
- Independent Publisher 2
5
Install a caching plugin. Caching plugins are crucial in ensuring that your site loads quickly every time. One well-reviewed caching plugin is the W3 Total Cache plugin, but all of the caching plugins in the WordPress store are free.
- You must have at least a Business-tier WordPress plan to be able to install plugins.
- To install a plugin, click the Plugins tab on the left side of the WordPress dashboard, enter your plugin's name in the search bar at the top of the page, click a plugin, and click Install at the top of the page.
6
Add a content delivery network to your site. A CDN pushes your on-site files (e.g., pictures) to a server closest to whomever is accessing them, meaning that they load faster and are quicker to download.
- MaxCDN (https://www.maxcdn.com) is the industry standard for WordPress CDNs, but Free-CDN in the WordPress plugin store offers reduced features for free.
7
Make your photos load quicker. You can install a free plugin called "WP-SmushIt" from the WordPress plugins page. This plugin forces your photos to scale down their individual file sizes while retaining their superficial quality.
- WP-SmushIt will automatically apply this process to every photo that you upload.
8
Disable Gravatar on your site. Especially if your site gets a large number of active visitors who comment regularly on your posts, preventing the Gravatar images from showing on your site will drastically increase load speed.
- You can disable Gravatars with plugins.
9
Load only visible images. Installing a plugin called "LazyLoad" will prevent any images on the page that aren't currently visible to the reader from loading, while the visible images will load quickly.
- LazyLoad, like most of the plugins listed here, is free.
10
Remember to clean up. Just like cleaning up after a busy day of entertaining, you'll need to delete discarded revisions and drafts, remove out-of-date apps, update the home page, and otherwise attend to your site's needs on a weekly basis.
- Simply maintaining regularly your website will result in a noticeable boost in speed.
Advertisement

Expert Q&A

Search

Add New Question

Ask a Question

200 characters left

Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered.

Submit

Tips

Minimizing the number of widgets and unnecessary (or out-of-date) plugins on your site will always increase the load speed.
Thanks
Helpful0 Not Helpful0

Warnings

The Internet is fickle. Unless you're paying for premium hosting and CDN options, you're likely to notice some slow-down on your site from time to time.
Thanks
Helpful0 Not Helpful0