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Your website needs to be fast. Google and other search engines consider the website’s speed very important. A slow website hampers the overall user experience. WordPress is a great CMS that offers lots of tools and tricks to make your website work faster.
1. Find the best host
You need a hosting provider to host your website. It’s like providing your website a home online. So, it would help if you had someone with a track record of delivering high-end and fast websites. A good host will provide unlimited bandwidth, emails, space, domain, etc. You must read the reviews first and prioritize the host you want to work with. Do not go for shared hosting. This will deteriorate your website’s performance during peak hours. Web host prices have decreased drastically with new web hosts in town. You must put up the best content and attract a lot of traffic to your website. This should be your first step.
2. Find a light and suitable theme
Your viewers only have part of the day to catch their information from your website. So, you better choose a website theme that is light and right. If you choose a website with too many sliders, social icons, elements, widgets, etc., it may look breathtaking to your eyes, but its performance will surely come down. A website with a higher page size and too many elements will take a toll on the server. Lightweight themes can save your day. WordPress has many bland default themes, but they work perfectly when your server is not acting well. You can read online reviews of different WordPress themes and choose one with less loading time than others.
3. Server location is important
The next point in WordPress website maintenance is choosing a server close to you. The website may perform poorly if your physical distance is far from your server. The server takes a lot of time to receive and process a request if the physical distance between the same and you is extended. Your target is to cut down the latency because your website will automatically slow down if the latency is higher. If your website has less content, such as images, videos, animations, etc., its latency will be higher. So, it would help if you found a server close to you. When you choose a hosting plan, try to find something close to your place; this can change the game, and you will see a change in the response time of your website.
4. A reliable page builder is essential
You have found a good host and a server close to your place, but your website will only work correctly if you find the best page builder. A page builder is a plugin you need to design your website pages. You can easily create the complex pages of your website with a high-end page builder. These page builders are preset page frames you can use on your website. You do not need a lot of technical knowledge to use these page builders, but they take a toll on your website’s speed. It would help if you found a page builder that will not take a toll on your website and offers you a working website.
5. Optimized images are required
Images are essential for a website’s overall performance. If you are showcasing any product or emotion, images play a pivotal role in that. It is necessary to understand that images will slow down your website to a great extent as they cover 45-48% of a page’s total size. It is essential to keep the images under 500 KB. This will drastically affect the image quality and ensure your page loads faster. Image optimization also includes a recommended file format. You only need to upload JPEG and PNG files to your website. You will also find another option named WordPress lazy loading. Under this feature, the images will only load when requested. So you can keep your image size high, but they will load on request.
6. Remove unused plugins
As per a top WordPress developer in Toronto, Plugins are essential for a WordPress website to work and add many different and attractive elements to a WordPress website. But they can drastically reduce the website’s speed. So, you need to deactivate and uninstall these unused plugins attached to your website. If you think only deactivating the plugin will solve your problem, you are highly mistaken. You need to permanently delete the plugin from your web page to keep it away from your website. If your plugin is inactive, it can still leave some queries and configurations on your website. For WordPress maintenance, it is important to delete these portions separately for a clean, dirt-free website.
7. Go for the latest PHP version for your website
PHP is the scripting language used in WordPress web pages. More than 75% of all the websites out there use PHP as their reliable scripting language. PHP can convert your boring website into a dynamic and interactive one. PHP has undergone many updates since its inception and now comes up with many new security enhancements and performances. Using an old version of PHP means you will miss out on many new and advanced features. Updated PHP will ensure that the website doesn’t slow down to a great extent. So you must go for the latest PHP, which ensures you get many security patches and performance improvements in your website.
8. Cleaning up your databases
In the starting phase of your website, you may find it manageable with databases. Still, as time passes, your website will be filled with images, information, plugins, posts, media files, pages, and whatnot! All these things together will take a toll on your website’s performance. Your website will slow down for sure, and the version of your website will also come down to a great extent. It would help if you keep cleaning your database and media library regularly. Sometimes, it is tough for you to do such stuff. You may find helpful plugins in the WordPress theme you are using, and you can use these plugins to clean your website and keep it going without any delay.
9. A perfect caching plugin is required
A cache is where some of your website’s data is stored successfully and effectively. When someone visits your website more often, a static version of your website gets created on the user’s browser automatically. This will ensure that the person doesn’t need to wait a lot to load the whole website and quickly get a static view of your website. WordPress has some fantastic caching plugins you can use while building your website. You need to read the reviews of the caching plugins available with WordPress and choose something that works faster and does not slow down your website drastically. WordPress plugins may help you with that.
10. Update your plugins and themes
Regularly update your WordPress themes, plugins, and other core tools. You need to get the best of WordPress every time for your website. If you update your WordPress regularly, you can experience the latest changes, which can add more value to your website. If you are not correcting your WordPress, thinking that this will add more size to your website and lower it, its speed may backfire on you. Not updating your WordPress may bog down the website’s speed drastically. Your website may face an attack from hackers as they look for vulnerable websites every time. So, an update is significant for your website’s health.
11. Secure your website
It would be best if you fully secured it, as hackers are always active even when you sound asleep. It would help to have strong passwords, malware finders, antivirus, and many more things that can prevent hackers from peeking into your website and taking down its speed. Your viewers may need to leave relevant and personal information on your website.
They will not like others misusing their data. So, you can add HTTPS in front of your website, ensuring that your website is free from any malware attack. You can also turn on the two-factor authentication process so no one can enter your website and manhandle it. You can also add solid usernames and passwords so no one can guess them easily. You need to keep changing your passwords and turn on the WordPress security updates to keep your website malware-free, which can affect its speed.
Conclusion: If you implement the abovementioned points and start practicing those regularly, your website can stay clean and never bog down. Keep updating WordPress themes and features to get the best for your website. You also need to keep your system free from malware and viruses. Tips for an optimized website include using a strong antivirus for your computer and practicing techniques to avoid malware to help your website work faster.