Creating a digital presence for your company is essential in today's work environment. A well-designed site makes it much easier for potential clients to learn more about your business and check your services. A WordPress website is often a popular choice for many companies due to its user-friendliness and flexibility. However, a slow WordPress site can kill traffic to your website and make it nearly impossible to grow your business. Looking at ways to boost the speed of your site is essential in helping you reach as many visitors as possible.
Here are a few of the top ways you can increase the speed of your WordPress website.
1) Research Website Hosts.
Many companies make the common mistake of choosing the cheapest website host. However, this will significantly impact your site's performance, as it's a much better option to do your research in advance to find a website host to meet your needs best. For example, a dedicated server will offer the best speed, but it's often too expensive for many small businesses. One alternative is to use a virtual private server (VPS) to improve the speed of your site without going over your budget.
2) Keep Plugins Updated.
Another way to increase the speed and performance of your site is to keep your WordPress plugins up to date. Installing these updates as soon as possible helps increase the speed of your site while also improving security. Enabling automatic updates for WordPress plugins is especially helpful for many companies, as it's easy to get busy with other work-related activities and forget to check and download the latest updates.
3) Reduce Size of Images.
Large images are one of the main contributors to slowing down a website. Understanding how to decrease the size of these images without impacting the quality is essential. Fortunately, you can select from numerous plugins to optimize images on your site. A few of the most popular options include WP Smush, Optimole, and EWWW Image Optimizer.
4) Streamline Your Site.
Creating a lean site is one of the best ways to maximize your speed. Testing out various themes is a great way to determine how they will impact your site. For example, a WordPress theme with an excessive number of features can significantly slow down your site. You can test the theme demos to see how long it takes for your website to load, as it's a good idea only to use themes that will load in less than three seconds. Leveraging speed-boosting plugins is another way to boost your site's efficiency and create a better user experience.
Closing Thoughts
Understanding how to improve the performance of your WordPress website is essential in gaining an edge over competitors and making it easier for visitors to view your site. Finding the right website host, keeping your plugins updated, reducing image sizes, and streamlining your site all play a critical role in maximizing speed. Continually checking your website and looking at ways to improve will help you keep your site efficient and user-friendly. If you're inclined, you can perform many of these tasks independently, or you can reach out to a web design company for expertise.
Resources
GTmetrics
PageSpeed Insights
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Solarwinds Pingdom
Uptrends
https://www.uptrends.com/tools/website-speed-test
WebPageTest by Catchpoint