Want to know how to speed up WordPress loading for fear of having a slow website?
You’re not alone, really. Slow websites are still a scourge. The proof, 80% of visitors will never return to a slow website. Just imagine if this happened to your website, especially one that is used for business.
Well, if you don’t want that to happen, learn how to speed up your WordPress website in the following article. Come on, see!
20+ Most Powerful Ways to Speed Up WordPress Loading!
Slow websites are caused by several things. Starting from less than optimal web hosting server performance, configuration errors, to too many plugins, and so on.
Well, to overcome this, here are 20+ ways to speed up WordPress loading that you can apply:
1. Choose the Right Hosting Service
This is the ultimate way to speed up WordPress loading. The reason is that good hosting quality will determine website performance.
Mainly, you can pay attention to the server technology used, the additional features it has, and the resources it offers.
For example, you can choose a hosting service that uses LiteSpeed servers because they are the fastest servers in the world. The server also has a good cache system so it supports WordPress speed.
In addition, because every website has different needs, the hosting you use must meet those needs
Not only does it provide a variety of hosting package options according to your needs, the hosting service must make it easier for you to upgrade if needed.
Why is this important? If many visitors are queuing to enter your website, it will make the website more difficult to access. If left without upgrading, the website can be slower and even inaccessible.
2. Perform Image Optimization
Complementing the website with a variety of supporting images will make it look more attractive. Unfortunately, using too many large images will affect the speed of your WordPress.
So, the next way to speed up WordPress loading is to optimize the images on the website.
There are two methods you can use. The first, using a WordPress plugin like WP-Smush, which is automated. The second, using tools such as TinyPNG, Photoshop, and PhotoScape which requires manual effort.
Well, before optimizing, you can check which images need to be compressed. Use the GTMetrix tool which will tell you which images affect your WordPress speed
Ideally, each uploaded image should not exceed 100 KB.
3. Use Embed Video
Adding a video on the website is often needed to support the information conveyed. Unfortunately, the video file has a large size.
As a result, visitors have to wait for the video loading process when accessing a website page. If more videos are used on the website, it will affect the loading speed of your website in general.
So, so that you can use videos on your website without overloading the database, use the embed method. Embed is the process of linking a link on a platform to a website.
For the embed method, you only need to copy the URL of the video you want to display (eg videos on YouTube), then paste it in the part of the website you want.
With an embed, the video will be displayed directly from the original video server, without you uploading it to your own server. This embed is a way to speed up a WordPress website that you can apply.
4. Activate the Hotlink Protection Feature
Other people can also use your website URL on their website to display content. This could be the reason your WordPress website is slow.
The reason is that the website files such as images, audio, and video that are used will take advantage of the bandwidth you have. This term is called hotlinking.
Hotlinking will make the server load increase because the bandwidth that comes out is quite high. This will make the website loading slow.
Now, to avoid hotlinking, you can activate the Hotlink Protection feature via cPanel.
In addition to the methods above, you can also take advantage of WordPress plugins such as All-in-One WP Security & Firewall which has a menu to activate hotlink protection.
With this hotlink protection, your website speed will be more stable because there is no excessive bandwidth usage.
Preventing bandwidth theft through indiscriminate use of your website assets is a great way to speed up your WordPress website.
5. Remove Unused Plugins
Plugins are indeed important to support website functions. However, if the installed plugins are not used, it can become a problem. Because, the plugin will take up more resources and cause your website to load slowly.
Therefore, removing unused plugins is an effective way of speeding up your WordPress website. So what to do?
The first step is to check which plugins you want to uninstall and which ones to keep. After that, do the steps to uninstall unnecessary plugins.
How to uninstall a plugin is that you go to the Plugins menu from the WordPress dashboard, select the plugin to be removed, then select Delete.
6. Choose a Light Theme
It is undeniable, the theme is a surefire way to make the website look attractive. However, some themes actually have a large size. So, if used, it will make the website loading slow.
So, how to speed up WordPress loading by choosing a lightweight theme is the solution. Ideally, a lightweight theme should be 500KB-1MB in size.
Now, when choosing a lightweight theme, try to make it responsive on mobile devices, so that the appearance of your website fits the mobile device screen.
7. Enable WordPress Caching
Enabling WordPress caching is an easy way to speed up WordPress loading. This step will be more effective if your hosting service supports good caching management.
Cache is a temporary storage medium for data or HTML pages and the content of a website, which serves to reduce resource usage. When resource usage is reduced, your website loading can become more stable.
The good news is, you can enable caching in WordPress with the help of several plugins to speed up WordPress loading. Such as WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Super, LiteSpeed and Autoptimize.
All you need to do is install the plugin, and activate the cache settings that are already available.
8. Update WordPress Periodically
One of the causes of slow WordPress website loading is not updating the WordPress version. In fact, every WordPress update will provide performance improvements.
For example, if a bug, or a security hole from a malware or virus threat is found, you must take the risk if you are still using the old version. Not to mention that if there are new features that can speed up WordPress, you won’t be able to enjoy them either.
Well, how to update WordPress can be done directly through the WordPress dashboard in the Updates menu.
9. Perform Database Optimization
As your WordPress website grows, the data stored will increase so that the database becomes bigger.
Unfortunately, among these data, there is a lot of junk data that is also stored. For example, unused tags, remnants of revisions, even spam comments from website visitors.
Of course, this garbage that accumulates and is not removed will also burden the database. In the end, it will make your WordPress load slower.
Well, the solution to create a relief database is by optimizing the database. There are three ways you can do this.
The first, using plugins like WP-Optimize and WP-Sweep. Second, clean the database tables manually. And the third way to speed up WordPress loading without a plugin is with the Weekly Automatic Database Optimization feature on the hosting service.
Well, you can choose the way you want.
10. Lower Query Database
The more WordPress database requests to the server, the greater the workload of the server. This will make your website slow. That’s why you need to reduce the use of database tables with high queries, so that website performance will be better.
To do this, you can directly check the website database, and determine which table should be removed because it burdens the server.
Well, if you are confused about which database table is burdening the server, you can use the Query Monitor plugin. This tool will make it easier for you to check database queries.
11. Disable Trackback and Pingback Functions
Basically, Tracback and Pingback are built-in WordPress features that can make websites indexed faster by search engines. Unfortunately, this feature is often used by spammers to get automatic backlinks.
If that happens, then over time these backlinks will become spam that accumulates in your WordPress database. There will eventually be slow website loading.
For this reason, you need a way to speed up WordPress loading by disabling the Trackback and Pingback functions. So you will disable those two features.
There are two ways to disable Trackback and Pingback. First, use a WordPress plugin to speed up loading Disable XML-RPC Pingback.
Second, you can disable it directly in the WordPress dashboard as follows:
– Go to your WordPress Dashboard;
– Click Settings;
– Select the Discussion option;
– You will see several options with checkboxes on the right. Well, please uncheck the allow link notifications option.
You can choose one of the two methods, whichever is easier for you.
12. Reduce Redirects
Sometimes, you need a redirect to redirect visitors from page A to page B on a website. Generally, because the information on page A is outdated.
Although useful, redirects will actually make visitors take longer to enter your website. This is because the process of displaying data is longer from the server to the visitor’s browser.
So, make sure you minimize these redirects. If the redirect is reduced, then the data load from the server will be shorter. So, visitors will not spend a long time to enter your website.
That’s why this method of speeding up WordPress website loading without a plugin is worth implementing.
13. Enable Gzip Compression
Another way to speed up WordPress loading is by using gzip compression. Gzip compression is useful for reducing the size of files on your website, such as CSS, HTML, JavaScript, XML and others.
By enabling this compression feature, the server resources used by the website are automatically reduced. Because, files with large sizes can be compressed into smaller ones.
To enable Gzip compression, you need to go to the file manager in cPanel. Then open the .htaccess file. If the .htaccess file doesn’t appear, follow this guide on How to Show Hidden Files in the cPanel File Manager.
Once inside the .htaccess file, add the code below:
<IfModule mod_filter.c>
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE “application/atom+xml” \
“application/javascript” \
“application/json” \
“application/ld+json” \
“application/manifest+json” \
“application/rdf+xml” \
“application/rss+xml” \
“application/schema+json” \
“application/vnd.geo+json” \
“application/vnd.ms-fontobject” \
“application/x-font-ttf” \
“application/x-javascript” \
“application/x-web-app-manifest+json” \
“application/xhtml+xml” \
“applications/xml” \
“fonts/eot” \
“fonts/opentype” \
“image/bmp” \
“image/svg+xml” \
“image/vnd.microsoft.icon” \
“image/x-icon” \
“text/cache-manifest” \
“text/css” \
“text/html” \
“text/javascript” \
“text/plain” \
“text/vcard” \
“text/vnd.rim.location.xloc” \
“text/vtt” \
“text/x-component” \
“text/x-cross-domain-policy” \
“text/xml”
</IfModule>
</IfModule>
If it has been added, don’t forget to click Save so that the code can be executed.
14. Enable HTTP Keep-Alive
HTTP Keep-Alive is a method of speeding up WordPress loading without a plugin. This method is intended to make file requests to the server not repeated when your website is accessed.
Well, you can enable HTTP Keep-Alive by adding the code below to the .htaccess file
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Connection keep-alive
</IfModule>
When finished editing, don’t forget to click Save so that the code can be executed.
15. Do Leverage Browser Caching
Leverage browser caching is an attempt to increase the temporary storage (cache) in the visitor’s browser so that your WordPress website pages can be accessed faster.
To leverage browser caching, open the .htaccess file. Then, enter the code below into it.
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
Expires Active On
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year”
ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/x–javascript “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x–shockwave–flash “access 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x–icon “access 1 year”
ExpiresDefault “access 1 month”
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
As you can see, next to each file type is “access 1 year/month”. Well, you can replace the “1” with the duration you want.
In addition to the manual method above, you can leverage browser caching via plugins. Please install Leverage Browser Caching on your WordPress, then immediately run the plugin.
16. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
To shrink website files such as CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, you can use the minify technique. Minify is the process of removing characters such as spaces, tabs, and enter that are not needed in CSS, JavaScript, and HTML code.
So, later website resources will be smaller so that the speed of your website will increase.
Well, minify CSS, Javascript, and HTML files on the website is not complicated, you know. Because, you can do it automatically with the help of a plugin.
The plugin to speed up WordPress loading that is proven to be effective for minify WordPress websites is LiteSpeed Cache. Once the plugin is installed, you can simply enable minify through its settings.
17. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Using a CDN to speed up WordPress website loading is the right decision. There is research that shows that using a CDN can increase website speed by up to 362%!
What is a CDN? CDN or Content Delivery Network is a network of servers spread throughout the world, which serves to deliver various content on the website to the visitor’s browser from the nearest server.
For example, your website server is in the UK, and a visitor from Indonesia accesses your website. Then the content that is accessed by your visitors comes directly from the Indonesian server. So, this CDN will make data distribution faster, because it supports network servers from any location.
Using a CDN is the right step as a way to speed up WordPress website loading without a plugin.
18. Limit the Number of Content Views on Website Pages
The more content that is displayed on a page, the longer it will take to load the page. Therefore, how to speed up the loading of a WordPress website by limiting the display of content is the right solution.
To do this, you can follow these steps:
– Open your WordPress dashboard;
– Go to Settings > Reading menu in the WordPress sidebar;
– In the column to the right of the Blog pages show at most text, select the number of posts you want to display.
– If so, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
19. Limit Revision of Each Post
To produce the best content, edits or revisions need to be made, even up to several times. Unfortunately, the remnants of that revision are still stored in the database.
With the accumulation of revision garbage, of course it will increase the database load which results in slower website speed performance. So it’s best if you can limit revisions to each post.
Actually, limiting revisions does not directly speed up your website loading. However, with fewer revisions, there are fewer revisions left in the database, so your database will be lighter too.
It’s very easy to limit revisions! You just need to add this line of code in the wp-config.php file
define(‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 4);
You can replace the number 4 above with any number, the most important thing is not more than 15 so that your database remains spacious.
20. Put JavaScript in Footer
Does your website use JavaScript to make the appearance on the website more organized? If so, you better put the JavaScript script under / footer.
Because, basically JavaScript will be loaded in the visitor’s browser. So, it will be quite burdensome if placed at the beginning or in the body of the page.
If you put the JavaScript in the footer, you will give the server data a chance to load first. Then the JavaScript will be loaded. This will make users feel faster when accessing your website.
That’s why you need to implement a way to speed up WordPress website loading by putting JavaScript in the footer.
21. Remove Query String from Static Source
This method of speeding up WordPress loading may sound technical, right? Take it easy, this method is actually easy to do, you know. In essence, you need to remove static query sources like style-sheets and Javascript to increase the speed of your website.
The trick, just install the Remove Query String from Static Resources plugin, then activate the plugin feature. Then, the plugin will work automatically to remove the static query source.
22. Enable Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page)
Enabling Google AMP is a way to speed up WordPress loading with the target audience of mobile users. Why? Because most of the audience access the internet through their smartphones.
Well, Google AMP itself is a feature owned by Google whose main advantage is ensuring that the content on your website is accessed faster on mobile devices. Its function is to limit the image resolution, change the image format to suit the mobile device display, and reduce image quality.
Well, if your website is AMP ready, then the mobile user audience will not be constrained by loading the old website access. Because, all website formats for mobile have been adjusted.
In addition to making loading faster, visitors’ internet quota is also more efficient. So, to understand more about optimizing this feature, also check out our AMP guide.
So, those are the 20+ ways to speed up the loading of the most powerful WordPress website that you can do. Pretty complete, right?
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