Your website’s speed is important.
First, faster websites provide a better user experience. Studies have shown that people are willing to wait only a few seconds for a page to load before they give up and move on.
Second, fast websites improve search engine rankings. Google and other search engines consider website speed when determining where to rank a site in search results.
Finally, fast websites improve conversion rates. A slow website can cost you sales and leads, as potential customers click away in frustration.
So how can you speed up your WordPress website? Here are five tips to get you started.
1. Optimize your images
Large, unoptimized images can slow down your site. Make sure to compress your images before uploading them to your website.
I recommend using TinyPNG. This website can drastically reduce the file size of your images. They also offer a WordPress plugin that compresses image files automatically as you upload them to your website. Even better, it can compress images you’ve already uploaded. So if your site has hundreds or even thousands of images, you won’t have the manually compress and reupload the images.
2. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
A CDN is a group of servers that deliver content to your visitors based on their location. A CDN can improve loading times, as the content is delivered from a server closer to the visitor’s location.
Cloudflare is a popular CDN used by millions of websites. They offer a free plan that can be easily set up.
3. Enable caching
When visitors load a page on your website, their browser stores certain files locally on their computer. This means that the next time they visit your site, their browser doesn’t have to request those files from your server again, which can speed up loading times.
You can enable caching in WordPress using a variety of plugins, depending on your needs. I use LiteSpeed Cache, which works on servers that have the LiteSpeed Web Server installed. WordPress Hosting providers like SiteGround also offer built-in caching.
4. Use a faster hosting provider
Your hosting provider can have a big impact on your site’s speed. If you’re not happy with your current provider, consider switching to a faster one. WordPress Hosting providers like WP Engine offer plans specifically designed for WordPress websites. They use server-level caching and other performance optimization techniques to make WordPress sites load faster.
Always Relevant Digital offers WordPress web hosting. We specialize in nonprofit and small business website hosting. It’s ideal for an organization that needs quality hosting, but that doesn’t have a tech person on staff. We handle the email, caching, backups, WordPress updates, and security for you, so you can focus on your mission.
5. Optimize your WordPress database
Over time, your WordPress database can become bloated with post revisions, transients, and other data that is no longer needed. You can clean up your database using a WordPress plugin like WP-Sweep or WP-Optimize. These plugins will delete unnecessary data and optimize your database tables for faster performance.
Conclusion
By following these tips, you can speed up your website and improve your user experience, search engine rankings, and conversion rates.
