How to Optimize WordPress Website for Better Page Speed?

This is the ultimate guide to optimize WordPress Websites. Optimizing should always be your goal to achieve good performance and better security.

Most blogger doesn’t care about WordPress speed optimization things which usually hampers their blog performance and may cause an issue within a blog.

Since loading your website within a few seconds always should be your priority. Most professional bloggers care about page speed.

The loading time of your web pages should be as quick as possible otherwise it may result in an increasing Bounce Rate. The exit Page rate case will be higher than expected.

optimize wordpress website

While using the WordPress platform most marketers use unwanted, outdated plugins. Not only that but also they don’t care about updating to the latest version.

Updating themes, plugins, and WordPress version should be your #1 priority since it helps to fix the latest bugs.

You may have questions on how to optimize a WordPress site. So, how can you achieve these things at a time for better loading time and speed?

There are certain tricks and tactics in order for optimization. It helps to optimize WordPress websites for google search as well as for mobile and bing etc.

Recommend Reading: WordPress Blog Checklist

Checklist to Optimize WordPress Website

1. Better Web Hosting

Most the people don’t care about hosting and buy cheap and limited hosting for their websites/blogs. There should be an issue with cheap hosting as it doesn’t care about uptime and lacks many more features like a Backup problem, Issue Support Portal, limited Bandwidth, Database Issues, etc.

So always choose a good hosting with a better plan that suits your website. You can choose to host among Cloudways, Kinsta, and WP Engine. They are the best in their business and provides quality services to Optimize WordPress website.

Also Read: Learn to Speed Up WordPress Website on Cloudways

2. Updating to Latest WordPress Version

Updating the Version is crucial when you are using WordPress as a CMS. You should always upgrade your site to the latest version. You will see the update message on your Administrator Dashboard.

WordPress Latest Version

Always back up your website and database before upgrading the version. Since it is for the safe side and later on you can restore it if anything happens.

3. Use of Caching Plugin

When you are working on WordPress website speed, installing a cache plugin should be the number #1 priority. You should never undervalue the power of Cache Plugin.

It helps to increase your website speed. Caching generally means the process of creating static versions of the website content in your browser.

It helps to load your website quickly while opening after the first time onwards. Here is an example of my website speed checked in GTmetrix This website helps me to Optimize the WordPress website showing which section to improve.

WordPress Speed Optimization Expert

List of Best-Caching Plugins for WordPress

WP RocketWP Rocket is a premium plugin that you need to pay to use on your website. It helps to optimize WordPress websites to achieve optimization goals.

You don’t have to worry about the coding to install it. It takes a few minutes to install due to its simplicity.

"<yoastmark

WP Rocket Plugin has great features like Page Caching, Cache Preloading, Sitemap Preloading, GZIP Compression, Browser Caching, Database Optimization, Google Fonts Optimization, Remove Query Strings from Static Resources, Minification / Concatenation, Defer JS Loading, etc.

It helps to achieve a higher page score on Google Page Speed, Pingdom tools, GTmetrix, etc.

Best Caching Plugin WP Rocket
Best Caching Plugin WP Rocket

Check Out: WP Rocket Tutorial

WP Fastest Cache: WP Fastest Cache is one of the simplest caching plugins with an easy user-friendly interface to optimize WordPress Websites. You just need to install it and shouldn’t care about advanced settings.

"<yoastmark

You just need to tick the settings. In this blog, I am using WP Fastest Cache to speed up website performance.

It is a freemium plugin with lots of features in the free version. It is a life-saver plugin to optimize a WordPress website.

"<yoastmark

WP Super Cache: WP Super Cache is yet another cache plugin that generates static HTML files from your WordPress sites. It is developed by Automattic as they are the creator of WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, etc.

WP Super Cache Plugin
WP Super Cache Plugin

WP Super Cache settings are for advanced users. You need to configure it correctly before using it. There are settings from easy to advanced with more settings like Contents, CDN, Preload, Debug, etc to optimize the WordPress website.

WP Super Cache Settings
WP Super Cache Settings

W3 Total Cache: W3 Total Cache is the topmost caching plugin used by millions of WordPress developers. As stated in the WP directory it upgrades your web performance and also helps with your SEO.

W3 Total Cache Plugin
W3 Total Cache Plugin

W3 Total Cache Plugin is trusted by top websites and installed by websites like Mashable, mattcutts, smashing magazine, MakeUseOf, etc.

With features just like minification, page cache, object cache, opcode cache, Database Cache, Browser Cache, etc. it is likely an advanced plugin to optimize WordPress Websites.

W3 Total Cache Settings
W3 Total Cache Settings

4. Use of CDN(Content Delivery Network)

Content Delivery Network also known as CDN is a connection of distributed networks that helps to convey the pages upon request to the users based upon a geographical location.

It helps to accelerate the pages requesting to the server that is nearest to the user’s location. Most marketers want their site to be fast, and secure since its impact on our different metrics like Bounce rate, full loading time, etc.

CDN helps us in many ways just like in Wide Security features like DDoS attack which is one of the most dangerous attacks on the internet. Reliability is another feature when you can trust CDN for.

Millions of websites are using CDN to improve performance, security, and sales including e-commerce sites, Government Agencies, and even medium-sized company too.

If you are willing to buy Content Delivery Network Package then you can find differently-sized pricing.

Cloudflare, MaxCDN, Akamai, etc are the companies that provide Content Delivery Network services to boost your website. BunnyCDN is my favorite CDN which I have been using on my site

Content Delivery Network
Distributed Network Geographically [Image Credit: Cloudflare]

5. Choosing Better Theme and Framework

Many people usually got stuck in this part as they got a dilemma in choosing the right theme and Framework. There are different varieties of themes on the internet.

You can find millions of themes that will be difficult to choose from. Generally, I prefer themes that have fast site load times, are SEO friendly with lightweight and secure coding structure, and are inexpensive cost.

If you are searching for these kinds of themes then you can choose, Generatepress, and StudioPress Themes for WordPress which this website has been using.

Many Themes usually charge recurring fees but with StudioPress it’s a one-time fee with variations of theme available on it.

StudioPress Theme for WordPress
StudioPress Theme for WordPress

6. Optimizing images for Better Speed

There are a few ways to optimize your image in order to increase proper page speed since it’s one of the must-to-do tasks. I always do care about image file size.

Larger the picture size longer the loading time will be. so, how to get your images optimized? Actually, there are lots of plugins for image optimization but using plugins may hinder the site performance.

I use Squoosh, TinyPNG website to optimize my images. It is one of the best sites I recommend to my circles to optimize a WordPress website.

It only takes a few seconds as you need to upload the image(s), it will optimize for you, and just download it and use it on your website.

Alternatively, If you want to use the plugin on your website, you can find several plugins and a few of them are popular just as SMUSH, Ewww Optimizer, etc.

TinyPNG
TinyPNG

Related: Best Blogging Resources

7. Split Long-Form Content

The long-form content position higher in search engines so writing longer content should be your priority. But keep in mind that you need to focus on quality rather than quantity.

So, how to write long-form content? Different writers have distinct writing skills, and styles so they may differ from you.

Usually, divide your content into various parts so that it will be easy for you to write. Use sub-headings to split it. Using H2 and H3 is best for splitting long-form content.

8. Enable Gzip Compression

When you browse something on the web, it calls the server and passes the request for the files. When the file size is bigger it takes lots of time. So, delivering the file will be a problem and takes time.

so by enabling gzip you can reduce the load time and increases the page speed. You can see the following picture below where the Gzip Compression score is zero.

so, how to fix the Gzip Compression error to optimize the WordPress website? You can fix this by using a WP Rocket cache plugin. Please refer to step number 3 to get more insights.

Besides this, there are lots of caching plugins available in the WordPress Directory. Simply test the cache plugin with your theme and check compatibility issues, and also choose the best one.

9. Optimizing WordPress Database

Your website database is very very important as the database contains all sorts of posts, pages, links, comments, links, and everything.

If you are working to optimize your WordPress website database then always back up so that you’ll never lose your work.

Sometimes there are lots of revisions and to optimize this you can delete these revision posts from the database which is useless for us.

To delete revisions you can use different plugins and one of them is WP-Optimize which helps to keep your database clean and efficient.

WP-Optimize Plugin
WP-Optimize Plugin

10. Install Plugins from Official Source

Many WordPressers often ignore this topic but you should always install plugins from the official store. Indeed, you should never use too many plugins as they may hinder your website performance.

There are many nulled plugins available everywhere on the internet. These plugins contain malware and hacking scripts. Always install the plugin from the wordpress.org directory to avoid serious threats.

Note: This Post Contains Affiliation Links. Read Disclosure

Share:

I am obsessed with WordPress and write articles about WordPress Speed Optimization, SEO, and Blogging. I mostly publish tutorials on GeneratePress, Astra, Kadence, and GenerateBlocks.

13 thoughts on “How to Optimize WordPress Website for Better Page Speed?”

  1. Hey Suraj, I checked your site performance too and it loaded in 1 second with just 8 request while mine loads in 1.1 seconds and 19 requests.
    I use autoptimize plugin with cache enabler and lazy load plugin.
    How can I reduce these number of plugins and requests to load faster.
    You mentioned that you are using Fastest cache, would you mind sharing the best settings!

    Reply
      • Cloudways is expensive as of for me right now, can you suggest something cheaper than that. I am ready to pay for 1 or 2 years in a whole but on some reliable thing. Currently I am on Fastcomet.

        Reply
        • Please answer these questions.
          How many sites do you own currently? How much is your budget for hosting? How much are you paying right now? Which theme are you using?

          I was also using Shared Hosting but I was not happy with the performance so I decided to go with $10/month Cloudways Hosting Plan.

          Reply
          • I checked cloudways, the $10 plan is affordable whereas I am currently using Fastcomet plan with 6 cores and 6 gb ram. Now the $10 plan doesn’t compares to that and the other plans are high priced.
            I own 2 sites paying $150 for hosting a year. The theme is generatepress.

          • Hi, Please contact me using my email address in contact page. I will recommend something if you are using GeneratePress.
            Thank You

  2. kya aapka koi YouTube Channel hai, aapki website itni behtarin hai to channel kitna behtarin hogaa mera bhi ek hindi me blog hai use bhi aapke jaisa hi optimize karna chahta hun, kya uske liye koi help mil jayega

    Reply
  3. Hey Bro I need your help for optimizing comment. first of which comment plugin are you using is it native WordPress comment and secondly how to reduce http request particularly related to avatar and external link.
    it would be helpful to us, user like me if you write detailed article on it.
    Thank you in advance.

    Reply

Leave a Comment