When a person lands on a page on your website, you got a few seconds to capture their interest and encourage them to hang around more. If your site takes too long to load, you lost a visitor long before they could explore your site. However, with the right tools, WordPress can be optimized for better speeds and visitor experience.
In this article, how to optimize WordPress for speed shall be covered.
Overview
WordPress is a free web application content that uses PHP and MySQL for online publishing; it is the most popular and most used content management system second to none. It can be somewhat slow and sluggish. You may lose subscribers and any repeat visitors back to your site. Google has also included a site speed algorithm in their ranking, and thus it is essential to ensure that WordPress speed is optimized.
Disabled Unused Plugins
Login to your WordPress and go to your plugins menu and deactivate any plugins you are not currently using as shown below
Go to ALL INACTIVE tabs as shown below
Delete all of this assuming you are not using them to select then click on bulk actions then delete and Click on the apply tab to effect the changes as shown below.
Scan the site for plugin performance.
GO to Add the new plugin as shown below
Search for the P3 (plugin performance profiler) as shown below
Install and activate it as shown below
Navigate to the P3 plugin performance profiler and click SCAN NOW
Do a start scan and an auto scan as shown in the below images
Click Auto scan >below
Below image showing Auto scan in progress
Click on view results; then you find as shown below your slowest loading plugins
One can either replace them with faster loading plugins or delete them.
Get Faster Hosting (e.g. Siteground)
To avoid worrying about how many plugins you are using, I would recommend upgrading to a faster host like SiteGround. It is the number one host that WordPress recommends in their optimization guide as shown here
If you plan on upgrading to Siteground, they have various plans as shown below, choose one that suits you, though the higher the plan, the more server resources you’ll get and the faster the website is, and that’s the primary factor when it comes to hosting. Remember Siteground may migrate you for free, so it’s as simple as signing in.
Activate CloudFlare
Many hosts include Cloudflare which is a service that improves your website speed and security. On your WordPress site, Navigate to Plugins. Add New Plugin. Search for Cloudflare.Click Install Now.
Click Activate to enable Plugin.
Login to CloudFlare and get the API key.
Navigate to My Profile. Scroll down to API Keys.
Click on View to get the API Keys. Enter the account password when prompted.
Ensure that you add your site to Cloudflare
Your WordPress site can now be optimized using CloudFlare.
Install a Cache Plugin + MaxCDN
To Install a cache plugin, search it as shown below
Install and activate it as shown below
See the WP fastest cache on the left, click on it as shown below
Select the settings required and click on Submit.
Click on the CDN tab as shown below
A content delivery network is also recommended in the optimisation guide as shown below
We use the MaxCDN, sign up for a plan and enter your details, once you get into your MaxCDN dashboard go to the zone tab as shown below
Go to create pull zone as shown below
Click on create pull zone, fill in your details, your name can be anything, the label can be the same thing, but the origin server URL should be the name of your website as shown below
Click create.
Navigate to settings as shown below
Check to ignore strip all cookies and click Update.
Navigate to the SEO settings, check Enable canonical header and click Update.
The Summary Page is shown below;
On the WP fastest cache as shown below, click CDN
Click on CDN by MaxCDN to Launch the Wizard. Click Next
Copy the details from the MaxCDN page to the wpFastest cache as shown below. Click Next
Select all file types and click Next
Click finish
Click on close
On Manage cache and click on purge all
Use a lightweight WordPress theme (e.g. studio press)
It is essential as they affect your site speed these themes are well coded have built-in SEO, built-in security and are highly recommended, plan to use studio press themes…..As shown below
Conclusion
WordPress is the most popular and most used content management system, if well optimized can increase traffic to your WordPress site.
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