When it comes to speed, we often overlook internal factors that slow down the dashboard’s performance. In this regard, you can quickly fix dashboard settings and speed up your WordPress site without significant consequences. Let’s address the dashboard’s settings that are killing your site’s speed and learn how to fix them accordingly.

Killing your WordPress Site Speed

The following factors are flagged explicitly for a slow dashboard speed. You can certainly improve them with no technical expertise.

1. Unused, old versions of Themes and Plugins

Old-school advice, but it weighs equal importance to date.

WordPress, by default, comes with several themes and plugins. Even if you’ve installed your theme, you must wash out the default, unused assets from WordPress installation.

Similarly, updating your themes and plugins is no exception. As software(s) are constantly changing, here is the screenshot of a site we updated themes and plugins on.

Hence, we examined how unused themes and plugins can slow down the WordPress dashboard; you can see the results after we have removed and updated our site’s themes and plugins.

To proceed, you don’t need to use additional tools. Head to the WordPress dashboard and remove or update existing themes and plugins.

2. Un-used media and external files

The WordPress dashboard is not the place to host external files, such as PDFs, ZIP packages, or presentation files.

Instead, it would help if you dealt with documents in a way that doesn’t slow down your dashboard speed.

The best way to make it happen is by uploading your files to a hosting directory. This makes it possible to use files only when necessary. Head to hosting cPanel and create a new folder inside the “public_html” directory.

Once created, you can start uploading your files using an FTP client (File Zilla) or your hosting Upload option.

Similarly, if you’ve been using various themes on your WordPress site, your site’s Media may have stored unnecessary files. This is true, especially for users who import pre-made templates on their sites.

Proceed and delete un-unused media files from the Media Library. Also, you should always use images in proper sizes, compressed, and well-optimized for your theme. This significantly improves the site’s speed in WordPress.

3. PHP version

PHP is a scripting language that provides an interface for a site’s source files. Without the latest version, your site may fail to achieve superior results regarding the dashboard’s speed.

As themes and plugins are made of scripting source files, such as PHP, having the latest version of PHP installed on site is undeniable.

Fortunately, you don’t need to take additional steps to install or upgrade the existing installation of PHP.

Let’s learn how to ensure your site has the latest version of PHP installed.

PHP versions are well-managed with the hosting support desk. While you can also manage PHP up-gradation in hosting cPanel options, you should contact your hosting representatives for assistance.

To proceed, contact your hosting support desk and ask them to upgrade the PHP installation on your site.

After the hosting representative completes the up-gradation process, you can also confirm the PHP version. Head to the dashboard Tools -> Site Health page and verify the PHP installation.

4. No Cache plugin

If you don’t have a cache plugin installed on your WordPress site, you should experience a slow-loading dashboard and external pages.

A Cache plugin for WordPress is mandatory as it helps store resources for repeatedly used pages on your site. As the dashboard is the most-used interface for web admins, having a cache plugin quickly fixes slow-loading dashboards.

There are many candidates for caching your WordPress dashboard. When signed into WordPress, the Add New Plugin option helps you list trending caching plugins on the WordPress Plugins Directory, as shown in the screenshot below.

Proceed with the one that suits your current installation of WordPress. You can also experience speed before and after you have installed a cache plugin.

5. Web hosting and Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Time to First Byte or TTFB may seem technical to most of us, weighs equal importance for site speed and performance.

In simple words, TTFB is measured in seconds and refers to how fast a server responds to a user’s browsing request. If a server takes longer to respond, the site’s speed is affected exponentially.

In this case, you should always fix how slow-loading web hosting plans affect your site’s speed. The best way to fix TTFB is to use a full web hosting company for your WordPress site. You can also decrease browsing requests to improve your TTFB and speed up your dashboard speed.

6. Bonus: Screen options in WordPress Dashboard

Screen options help you hide or show content snippets in the WordPress dashboard. You can access screen options in the dashboard or pages like Pages and Posts.

Screen options hurt your dashboard speed when using lots of plugins on your site.

For example, once you’ve installed a plugin for security or analytics, you can see its relevant content snippets in the WordPress dashboard.

Having that clarified, you need to fix the slow speed caused by content snippets in the dashboard. Proceed and click on the Screen options in the dashboard. Here, it would help if you hid content snippets for plugins or options you don’t prefer to use regularly.

Similarly, repeat the process on Pages, Posts, and Category pages in the WordPress dashboard.

Let’s sum this up

WordPress dashboard is a mixture of themes, plugins, data, and content snippets. Improving the dashboard’s speed helps you work smarter and achieve more in less time.

This write-up discussed how you could tune in to the dashboard settings for improved speed and performance.

If you need to make your site even faster, you will need to deal with database values, image size and compression, and unused sidebar widgets.

If you need help optimizing your site for speed, let us know, and we’d love to sort things out for your WordPress site.