Hawaii SEO – Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site (Part 2)

/in /by

In Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site (Part 1), I discussed 3 tips in order to make your website load faster. This time, I will add 3 more tips to the list!

person using laptop

TIP #4: UNINSTALL THE PLUGINS THAT YOU ARE NOT USING.

  • Like other things on your website, plugins also take up space. This space you can use to allocate for more important matters. For you to lessen the space the plugins occupy, first, you have to identify the plugins you don’t use anymore and remove them.
  • After, look for the plugins that are dragging your website down. A tool you can use is Go Daddy’s P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler). This will help you in identifying the plugins that are affecting your page load time.
  • Once you have found those plugins, it is time to decide whether you should remove them or not. If you are done, don’t forget to delete the P3 plugin as well. Typically, the ideal number of plugins is somewhere below 20. Remember, the more plugins you have, the more chances it will slow your website. So, keep it at a minimal level and retain only the ones you are definitely using on a regular basis.

TIP #5: DON’T JUST COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES, DO IT ON YOUR SITE AS WELL!

  • What’s one way to compress your website? By using a tool called Gzip. For those who don’t know, Gzip is a data compression utility, and it uses the file extension .gz.
  • Through Gzip, all website files will be in one compact .gz file. This way, the server will have a quicker transmission time to the respective browsers of your web visitors. Thus, faster transmissions would mean less loading time of your web pages. So, what’s the downside? I’m telling you now that there’s no harm in installing Gzip. You better start using it to increase page speed!

TIP #6: FIND A GREAT CACHING PLUGIN

  • Every single time someone visits your website, a lot of things happen on the backend of your website. In simple terms, caching is comparable to taking pictures. Basically, when a website visitor goes to your website, it would have to load every little detail all over again. Your website will just refer to cache and load the picture of your website.
  • Since all the website elements won’t have to be sent to the web visitor again, this also ensures that the specific page will load faster. No need for the user to wait!
  • What can you use for this step? I recommend installing the WP Total Cache. The WP Total Cache aims to boost the user experience and SEO scores of your website. However, please follow the instructions well. Because if you dont, the plugin will do harm than good.
  • Surely, this will help you in improving the website speed and YSlow score, but let me reiterate that you need to install the plugin properly.
  • Note: WP Total Cache is considered an advanced plugin. If you are still a beginner, this might confuse you. So, if you aren’t confident you can handle it on your own, you can watch a tutorial on YouTube or just skip this tip.