20 Proven Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Website

Talking about WordPress optimization, Speed Up WordPress Website loading is an essential point that we shouldn't miss. To decrease the Bounce rate and Increase Website Traffic, you need a fast and reliable website, visitors will Stay a long time exploring our website. In addition, Website Speed is also one of Google's considerations in assessing the quality of a website. Therefore, a fast website will score well in Google's analysis and indirectly contribute to search engines' web performance. Before starting you should buy WP-Rocket Plugin, because it's one of the best WordPress Plugin to Speed Up Website. I'm also using WP-Rocket Premium plugin on my this Blog and my blog's speed just awesome.

Importance Of Having a Fast-loading Website?

Have you ever visited a website, and the page you are accessing feels so heavy that it takes a long time to open? What did you do after that? You tend to get impatient and close the web page immediately. However, it's not enough there. You will click on another website from the search results and then browse longer and more freely because the website is faster. Familiar with this situation? Yes, a slow website is indeed one of the main reasons why visitors leave. In fact, according to Kissmetrics data, 40% of visitors will leave a website with a loading exceeding 3 seconds. Meanwhile, on mobile devices, this number increased to 53%. This means that half of your entire audience will unsubscribe from the website when it is loading slowly. The one important thing about website speed is can be WordPress hosting. So many good options for your wordpress site out there. So choose a best wordpress hosting first. Other disadvantages that you can get include:

• Decreased website traffic.
• High Bounce Rate.
• Bad user experience.
• Low conversion rates because customers leave before even seeing your product.
• The reduced performance in search engine search results is because Google will not prioritize slow websites.

How to Check Website Speed

Before speeding up website loading, of course, we need to know where our website is currently. To Check Website Speed, here are some best tools you can use:

• Pingdom (Paid for more insight)
• Google Page Speed
• GtMetrix
• Orbit Local To judge whether the speed of this website is fast, average, or bad, it is actually a little gray. However, some SEO experts use these numbers as a guide for assessing website speed:
• Under 1 second = Perfect
• 1-3 seconds = Above average
• 3-7 seconds = Average
• 7 seconds and above = Bad

How to Speed ​​Up WordPress Website

Apart from the data above, MachMetrics (website speed monitoring service) agrees that the ideal loading time for a website is 3 seconds or less. If it has been 7 seconds and above, it means that the website must be optimized immediately. 21 Powerful Ways to Speed Up WordPress Website:

1. Enable WordPress Caching

Caching is one of the best tricks to speed up loading WordPress websites. There are some of the best caching plugins you can use. For example, WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, or LiteSpeed ​​Cache. This caching plugin will work on creating static HTML files. This file is what users will access again more quickly because it presents stored data. That way, server performance will be lighter, and pages accessed faster. The caching plugin also has various additional functions, such as minify HTML files, CSS, and browser caching.

2. Using the Latest Version of WordPress

WordPress is an open-source that is constantly evolving and improving. In each update, there are bug fixes from the previous version and also update features. In terms of speed, the latest version of WordPress is undoubtedly more optimal, and the problem of vulnerabilities is more resolved. On the other hand, legacy versions of WordPress tend to be slower and vulnerable to security threats.

3. Enable Image Compression

Images are often a problem for website speed. Large images on the website will undoubtedly increase the loading of the website. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the image is optimally compressed. An excellent way to compress images is to minimize the image size but still look with a good resolution. To solve this, you can use the partial compression plugin Wp-Smush Wp-Smush will help optimize images throughout the website while maintaining the solution. If you don't want to use a plugin, you can also use image compression websites, such as Tinypng, Compressor.io etc.

4. Remove Unnecessary Plugins

Of course, more plugins will increase the loading time of the website. This doesn't mean that you have to delete multiple plugins at once. Due to the fact, plugins are an essential part of building a WordPress website. But here, you need to consider which plugins do not need or have complementary and similar functions. Remove unnecessary plugins and keep plugins that support website functionality and optimization. 

5. Speed Up WordPress Website with CDN

CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a geographically dispersed network of data servers. Using a CDN will reduce latency and increase the speed of the server in serving content. CDN works by serving static content to each data server on the network. This request is received by the webserver to be forwarded to the server closest to the client's location. Cloudflare CDN is best, You can use WP-Rocket to direct add-ons. I'm also using Cloudflare CDN.

6. Use a Lightweight WordPress Theme

When choosing a WordPress theme, appearance should not be your only consideration. You need to explore the provider's features and make sure that the theme has a fast load. In addition, I also recommends using premium and original WordPress themes to optimize SEO and website security reasons. That way, besides supporting fast loading, themes also support your site more optimally in search engines.

7. Update to Latest PHP Version

The next way to speed up website loading is to make sure the PHP version that the website is using is the latest. For example, when you are still using PHP version 5, where the newest version is 7.4. This means that your PHP version is outdated and needs an upgrade. Migrating from PHP 5 to PHP 7 will positively impact the site as the latest version helps better memory optimization. To update the PHP version, you can access it via cPanel or going to WordPress Dashboard >> Updates. Before updating PHP, make sure the plugins and themes you are using support the latest PHP version.

8. Database Optimization

There is a lot of activity on the WordPress website, which increases the server workload and makes the database even heavier. Apart from posts in general, there are always spam comments, unused tags, and revised content piled up in the database. To lighten up your WordPress Website, try using the WP-Rocket plugin. By installing and activating this plugin, you can efficiently perform regular database cleaning to Speed Up WordPress Website.

9. Enabling Gzip Compression

Enabling Gzip compression is also best way to Speed Up WordPress Website. We can compress files measuring 100MB to 25MB in Zip format files by enabling this feature. Activation of Gzip Compression can be done through an optimization plugin like WP-Rocket or manually by adding a line of code in .htaccess. Here's the script you need to add in .htaccces:

1<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
2  # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts
3  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
4  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
5  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
6  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
7  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
8  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
9  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
10  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
11  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
12  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
13  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
14  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
15  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
16  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
17  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
18  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
19  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
20  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
21  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
22  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
23  AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml  
24  # Remove browser bugs (only needed for ancient browsers)
25  BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
26  BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
27  BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
28  Header append Vary User-Agent
29</IfModule>
30

To check if the website has Gzip compression enabled, you can test it with GiftOfSpeed.

10. Minify CSS, Javascript and HTML

The next step to speed up website loading is to make sure the files on the web are not heavy. To ensure this, you need to do Minify, which removes unused characters in the code structure. This minify process can be done on CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files. Through Minify, the code file is lighter so that website loading can be faster. The cache plugins usually includes a minify feature in it. So, you don't need to use a different plugin if you have optimized the features of the existing cache plugin.

11. Limiting the Amount of Content Per Page

Displaying too much content can be a burden for loading websites. So instead, try to save on the amount of content and elements you display on the main page or display with Pagination. You can apply Pagination in the comments, posts, and main pages with lots of content. But, on the other hand, this Pagination also prevents the website from wasting bandwidth while improving the user experience due to a more efficient presentation of content.

Comment Pagination on a WordPress Website

Here's how to set up Pagination in WordPress comments:

• Enter to WordPress dashboard, go to Settings> Discussions.
• On the Discussion page, set the maximum number of comments per page and the order in which they appear.
• Scroll down and click Save Changes

Content Pagination in WordPress Posts in the Gutenberg Block Editor

There are 2 ways we can do in Pagination in posts, manually or automatically. To manually share content with Gutenberg:

• Hover over the area you want to share and click the plus icon.
• Search for "Page Break," then click that option. If you want to apply Pagination automatically on all pages, you can use the pagination plugin available in WordPress. For example, WP-Paginate or WP-PageNavi. That way, you can divide the page automatically according to the minimum word limit that you specify.

12. Disable Pingback and Trackback Functions

Trackback and Pingback do help websites to be indexed faster in search engines. But, on the other hand, this feature is also often used by spammers to get automatic backlinks. Well, this activity has a tendency to create garbage in the WordPress database. As a result, the loading of the website is slower. To disable it, try using the Disable XML-RPC Pingback plugin. You can also deactivate Pingback and Trackbacks manually by going to the WordPress Dashboard> Settings> Discussions, then unchecking the Allow Link Notification option.

13. Limiting the number of revisions per post

The revisions that webmasters often make leave the junk in the WordPress database. To minimize this, limiting post revisions will make the WordPress database lighter. To do so, you need to open the wp-config file in CPanel or via FTP and add the following code:

1define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 5 );
2

Fill in the number according to the number of revisions you want.

14. Avoid Direct Video Uploads, Use Embed URLs

If you intend to add videos to website content, avoid uploading them directly. Instead, take advantage of the video provider platform's video embed feature and put it in your content. With this embed feature, videos will appear automatically when published without overloading website performance and waste bandwidth. That way, even though there is quite a lot of video content on the website, you can still speed Up WordPress Website uploading your website.

15. Disable Hotlinks on the Website

Hotlinks may not have a direct impact on website speed. However, disabling it will be one of the optimizations to maintain the speed of your website. The reason is, this hotlink feature allows users from other websites who access your site's images to steal server bandwidth. As a result, bandwidth becomes wasteful and overwhelming. To disable it, you only need to upload the following file to .htaccess:

1RewriteEngine on
2RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
3RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
4RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
5RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?bing.com [NC]
6RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yahoo.com [NC]
7RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|svg)$ http://dropbox.com/hotlink-placeholder.jpg [NC,R,L]
8

16. Reducing Query Requests

The number of database requests to the server certainly affects the website loading speed. Therefore, to Speed Up WordPress Website, try to reduce the use of database tables with high queries. If you are unsure or unsure which database tables can burden the server, you can use the help of plugins. For example, you can use the Query Monitor plugin or WP-Optimize. The Query Monitor plugin will help you check the database, so you can optimize server performance easily. Or with WP-Optimize, which also has database table optimization options.

17. Minimizing Redirects

Sometimes redirects are done for a specific purpose. But what we need to underline, redirects also make HTTP requests load excessively and slow down website speed. For that, you need to control the flow of content on your website to not generate too many redirects. You also need to reduce links to other pages outside the website if you don't really need it.

18. Enable HTTP Keep-Alive

The next trick to Speed Up WordPress Website loading is to activate HTTP Keep-Alive. With the Keep Live method, the website will give orders so that file requests to the server don't repeat. To activate it, you can add the following line of code to your .htaccess:

1<IfModule mod_headers.c>
2 Header set Connection keep-alive
3 </IfModule>
4

19. Removing Query Strings from Static Sources

The next optimization is to remove query strings from static sources, such as Javascript and style sheets. But you need to know that clearing the cache cannot be done on links containing punctuation "?" and "&". The query string prevents the server from caching the website. As a result, the page speed will slow down. By removing the query string, you can optimize your cache and reduce page loading. You can delete query strings in 2 different ways. The first is to use an optimization plugin such as W3 Total Cache or the WP Remove Query Strings From Static Resources plugin. As for the manual method, you can add the following code in functions.php:

1function _remove_script_version( $src ){
2$parts = explode( '?ver', $src );
3return $parts[0];
4}
5add_filter( 'script_loader_src', '_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
6add_filter( 'style_loader_src', '_remove_script_version', 15, 1 );
7

20. Put CSS in the Header and Javascript in the Footer

Adjusting the placement of CSS and javascript can also speed up WordPress website. Javascript is client-side programming run from the client web browser side, not from the web server side. Therefore, putting the JS files in the footer will make the webserver load the page first until it's finished, then from the client-side, render the JS file. With this trick, website loading will be faster. 

21. Quality Hosting Service

The last tip for speeding up WordPress website loading is to use the powerful hosting service. If you only need a regular server, shared hosting may be sufficient. However, if the level of visits is high and requires more resources, maybe it's time to use a VPS. In addition, make sure you use a quality hosting service, both in terms of server quality, features, and service.

22. Enable Lazy Loading

Last but not least, to Speed up a WordPress website is Lazy Loading. Lazy Loading is a technique designed to increase the speed performance of a website. In general, if a website page contains too many photos and videos, it can immediately decrease the website's performance to be slower. Lazy Loading works by delaying loading images or videos. Especially when the visitor is not viewing the photo or video. For example, when you visit a website that has 10 types of images. Then Lazy Loading will display only the first image. Other images will be displayed when you scroll down the page. Below are examples of images before and after Loading by Lazy Loading: So, you can already conclude that the Lazy Load function is to reduce the website speed slowdowns. Especially when there are many media attachments (images or videos) on the website itself.

Conclusion

Speed up WordPress website is part of optimizing WordPress for SEO, as Google itself says: "The web should be fast." Continue to follow how to speed up loading WordPress until your WordPress website is really fast to load. It may be helpful. Optimizing a website is about the content and delivering a fast website to provide a good user experience. If a slow website is your problem at this time, hopefully, these tips can help to Speed Up WordPress Website. Do you have any other tips for speeding up loading WordPress? Don't forget to give your opinion or feedback about this article in the comments column. Good luck!