While WordPress has stood proudly as one of the finest platforms for building eye-catchy websites and blogs, this CMS(Content Management System) also suffers from a weakness i.e. it can get quite slow at times. Fortunately, we have an easy access to multiple methods that can be used for optimizing WordPress for an improved speed and better performance. Through this post, I intend to share with you some of the easy-to-follow WordPress optimization tips you'd definitely find useful in making your WordPress website/blog more appealing, both visually as well as functionality-wise.
1. Settle down for a good web hosting service provider
The hosting service chosen for the website plays a vital in speeding up the website and preventing the downtime during excellent traffic periods. Hence, instead of choosing shared hosting, it is recommended to choose a dedicated hosting service for your WordPress website/blog. A proper investment in hosting will allow you to reap the benefits in the long run.
2. Opt for an effective caching plugin
A good caching plugin can incredibly improve the overall page load time and allow your website/blog to perform outstandingly. W3 Total Cache is a remarkable WordPress caching plugin which comes packaged with features that make it an must-have for assuring a faster and better performing WordPress website/blog.
3. Use a suitable plugin for optimizing the MySQL database
Every time you delete any unused plugins, the same don't necessarily get deleted from your website's database. Thanks to the Clean Options plugin, you can easily detect all the unnecessary SQL tables and delete them right away, thereby freeing a lot of database space. Do remember, the less database tables your site has, the faster it would run.
4. Opt for a reliable CDN(Content Delivery Network)
If you're a WordPress user who has chosen to indulge in online marketing, then making use of the right CDN(Content Delivery Network) is definitely a great decision. It is the content delivery network which fetches all the static files viz: images, CSS, JavaScript etc. available on your website and allow the visitors to download the same faster. The CDN makes sure to serve the website files on servers which are closest to the visitors residing in different corners of the world.
5. Don't forget to minify your site's JS, CSS etc. in addition to removing all the unnecessary Java Scripts
Lesser is the count of JS and CSS files, faster is the website. It is important for you to note that your website's stylesheets and other CSS files comprise of a lot of blank white space. The more space you have in your site, more system resources would be used by your web server, thereby leading to an increased loading time. Well, there are multiple WordPress plugins which can be utilized for compressing this white space, thereby freeing up the system resources.
6. Enable gZIP compression for your website's CSS, JavaScript and images
If you're interested in decreasing the size of data that's been transferred between server and website visitors, I recommend you to enable the gZIP compression of all your JavaScript and CSS files in addition to the website images. Doing this will help your web server in compressing the site content before the same is being transferred to the browser via the internet. By lowering the size of information that needs to be transferred, you can easily lower down the loading time of your web pages. In order to enable the gZIP compression for your images and CSS, JS files, simply add the below lines to the .htaccess file available within the root of WordPress folder:
## ENABLE GZIP COMPRESSION ## AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript ## ENABLE GZIP COMPRESSION ##
7. Turn off all the ping backs and trackbacks for your website/blog
By default, WordPress comes with enabled ping backs and trackbacks. That means, every time a different blog mentions your blog, the same notifies your website. This in turn updates all the data stored for a particular blog post. You can opt for turning off these ping backs and trackbacks for your site, thereby improving your site's speed and performance.
Conclusion
Hope you'd have enjoyed going through the collection of WordPress optimization tips that can empower your blog/site with an enhanced tint of professionalism. So, get on and follow these tips to make your blog/site stand out from the crowd of WordPress portals available over the internet. These optimization factors are very much helpful when you are converting HTML to WordPress website.
