There are a lot of things to think about when you’re building a new WordPress website. You need to get the design right, you need to add the right plugins, and you need to make sure that your content remains up to scratch.
However, you also need to make sure that your website’s technical side doesn’t suffer while you focus on improving your design and functionality. Maintaining low load times is essential when it comes to both the user experience and SEO, and you need to make sure that your WordPress website is as fast as possible.
With this in mind, I’ve put together a list of a few easy ways to improve your WordPress website’s speed. They include:
Optimise Image Size
The first thing you should do is make sure that your images are relatively small. Never try and upload high resolution pictures to your WordPress website, because it’s simply not necessary. They will take extra server space and a long time to load, slowing your site down.
If you do have large images, the best thing to do is to compress them before you upload them. If your website is already up and running with a range of large picture files, then you should consider installing a plugin to minimise them.
Reduce The Number Of Plugins That You’re Using
The second thing that you can do when it comes to optimizing your WordPress website is reduce your plugin use. Every new plugin you install draws extra server resources and, in most cases at least, will slow your site down.
The best thing to do here is to go through and figure out which plugins are essential, and which ones aren’t really doing anything. If you’ve got plugins that aren’t doing anything then they’re essentially useless and you should definitely be disabling and potentially uninstalling them.
Minify Your Code
It’s also a good idea to go through your code files and make sure that they’re well written and not cluttered. The idea here is that the smaller your code files are, the faster your website will load.
If you don’t have enough coding and web development experience to minify your own code files then it could be worth paying someone to do it for you. The benefits will almost definitely outweigh the cost.
Use A Caching Plugin
Now, I know I just said that you should reduce the number of plugins that you’re using, but this isn’t always completely true. Some plugins are useful, and you should definitely be using a caching plugin.
Basically caching plugins are designed specifically to reduce the amount of data that has to be loaded when people visit your website. In turn, this will help speed your site up and reduce load times.
Final Word
It’s essential to make sure that your WordPress website is as fast as possible. If you haven’t already taken steps to reduce your load time, then you should. The tips outlined above are a good starting point, but make sure that you do your own research as well!
