How to speed up the site? How to increase website loading speed? Who needs it and why?
All site owners and webmasters sooner or later face the fact that their site is working sooooo slowly. Google constantly writes that “Your site is slow, it’s inconvenient for users to use it, and in general I will deduct points from you for such a slow mockery of visitors.”
Site speed is one of the important indicators by which Google looks at how user-friendly the site is, which means whether it is worth raising this site to the top of the search Olympus or leaving it somewhere on 5-10 pages. That’s why everyone rushed to optimize their sites. But not everything is so simple with this case.
How to speed up a WordPress site
In general, the WordPress engine is very, very heavy in terms of download speed and work. Even a clean, free of plugins and all sorts of add-ons WordPress site is already heavy, like a weightlifter’s barbell. And add to this a dozen “well, very necessary plugins for work,” and your site becomes like a big rhinoceros or even a blue whale.
As a result, webmasters who create sites on WordPress find themselves embroiled in a complex game, such as running in circles. Having received 20 speed points from Google Pagespeed, they begin to frantically rush about in search of plugins to optimize the speed of the site. And having hung these same auto-optimizers and minifires on the site, they are horrified to find that the scripts of these same plugins continue to slow down the site with a sad inhuman look.
What to do and how to be? After all, SEO-optimization of the site directly depends on the speed of its work. This means that today you can’t do without the speed of loading a site. How to speed up your site?
FolkWeb Website Speed Tips
In order not to torment you with long-playing arguments, we will share what we actually came to when working with WordPress.
Oddly enough, you can speed up a site on WordPress if you approach it with your head and a sufficient supply of free time. For you still have to dance around your site with a tambourine.
Plus or minus the sequence of actions to speed up the site will look something like this:
Ruthlessly remove plugins that you don’t really need. This is especially true for those that pull scripts from outside. For example, Facebook Pixel if you don’t use it, or Google Maps if you don’t have maps on your site. All sorts of translators, Hello Dolly, minifires on minifires, or 2-3 caching plugins that perform the same function. Into the fire! No regrets! And not just deactivate, namely delete. With ends. The caching plugin should remain alone (for example, Total Cache), and it’s good if you configure everything you need for minification and other compressing things in it alone. This will save you the number of external and internal requests, which means it will add speed to your karma.
Delete images if you have an insane amount of them on your pages. Sometimes the pages of sites resemble a Christmas tree, but who needs it? Leave only the most important ones, without which, well, in any way. The rest is off the pages.
The remaining images are compressed by services, for example tinyPNG. And pour already pinched back.
You combine icons and other trifles into one sprite (you can read on the Internet how to use sprites).
On pages that do not need a special design, including the main page, install the AMP plugin, making them not just frisky, but mega-fast. But then again, with its settings and work, you will have to sweat for a couple of days. True, then, these pages will fly on PageSpeed for 90-95 points.
If there is a desire, we bother, install the WebP plugin and compress all the pictures of the site into the WebP format, which, according to Google, is smaller and more modern than the traditional jpg. Although I think it’s all a myth.
In addition, we put the JetPack plugin and click on the checkboxes there to speed up the site and lazy load images (lazy load). The plugin uses accelerated preloading of your images from its resources, which reduces the number of site hits. In fact, it turns out a pseudo-CDN service. Although, if budgets allow, it’s better to rent a real CDN like Amazon and the like (We don’t recommend CloudFlare, since this thing worked very unstable for us personally and sometimes put the site on both blades).
Why is Total Cache not enough?
Ideally, of course, it would be if W3 Total Cache coped with all the tasks of speeding up the site on its own. Then fewer plugins would be needed. But, not everything is so simple. In fact, he can't do it alone.
For example, we put minify on scripts and styles, and it starts - then the site doesn’t really load, then you don’t see pictures. Already how to speed up the site and you don’t think, then the style would be returned to its place, so that there would be no such fear and horror.
Therefore, it is better not to include minification in Total Cache, but to entrust it to another respected plugin called Fast Velosity Minify. This plug-in copes with the task better and softer, although it adds an extra process.
Also don't forget to add OPcache, Memcache or Redis to your hosting. This, though not much, but still add to the speed.
If you did everything right, then your WordPress will fly like a bird to the SOUTH. Although not as fast as sites on YII and other similar frameworks. Even Drupal, with its crutches, moves faster. Well, let's not talk about sad things - WordPress, although slowly, is still being tuned and overgrown with new solutions.
What do you need to make your site work quickly?
Summarizing all of the above, we can single out the main rule How to speed up the site - get rid of everything superfluous. From unnecessary plugins, images, add-ons, extensions, all sorts of callbacks, consultants, attendance counters and other heresy. Of course, if they do not perform some important strategic tasks for you.
From traffic counters and advertising plugins, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, maybe Facebook Pixel are enough for you. You can get rid of the rest. And yes, Yandex Metrics Webvisor on the territory of Ukraine, well, oooooooooo much slows down the site. Therefore, if you have already collected enough information about the behavior of your users, then we strongly advise you to turn it off.
If this article was helpful to you, please share it with your friends. And do not forget to write in the comments about the success with your project.
Regards for your projects,
FolkWeb.net Team
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