How to speed up the loading time of WordPress 2021
TL; DR: Your WordPress site can slow down for a number of reasons. Malware is one of the main reasons why it harms your website. Protect your website with MalCare, a best-in-class security plugin that does not slow down your website.
Why is my WordPress site so slow
There can be several reasons why your WordPress site is slow to load . But the effect is always on the user experience. Visitors expect WordPress sites to load faster, and download if anything takes longer than a few seconds. This puts it on you to give them a great experience, or risk losing them entirely.
We've arranged this list by the most common issues you may encounter, so we recommend that you find the symptoms that best match your problem by perusing this list in chronological order.
1. Web host issues
Your web host can make all the difference when it comes to your website. Whether classifications search engine optimization ( SEO ) for your site or speed WordPress page , the web host your own is essential to how the performance of your website.
If you sign up for a shared hosting plan , for example, you'll share server resources with other websites. This may not be a problem if you are expecting less than 1000 visitors per day but if you are hoping for more visitors then your shared hosting plan will affect your WordPress performance .
There are many options to choose from when it comes to hosting services, including VPS hosting and managed hosting and shared hosting and so on . This is not better than the others but carefully understand the features of each type of hosting before signing up for one. Because the lowest priced plan may not always be the best for you.
2. Unoptimized photos
Images and other media files are important to engage your visitors, but if you use a lot of them, your WordPress site will load slowly.
We often fail to understand how virtual assets like your website work. Think of your website as a backpack, it is only useful if you put your books and other things in it.
However, if you put a lot of things in your backpack, they are likely to fall apart. The same thing happens with your website when it is loaded with content. Text content does not take up much space, but the same cannot be said for images, which make up about 34% of the weight of a web page.
You will also encounter this problem if you upload videos to your website. A good alternative is to include a YouTube link on your website instead.
3. Poor quality theme
So we discussed how your website is like a backpack, and your website theme is just another link in your backpack. The heavier it is, the more weight your backpack will have. So it is important to choose the right look for your website because it affects more than just the look of your website.
If you are running a poor quality theme or an empty theme on your website, the theme is probably bloated and not meant to be a high performance theme. Not only that but most of the deprecated themes have backdoors and vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.
An improved theme will be designed to ensure that it is functional but not bloated. Anything more than that, and your theme will start slowing down your WordPress website .
So in order to speed up WordPress , be sure to do your research before selecting the theme for your website. Additionally, be sure to update your theme regularly to ensure that it is optimized for optimum performance.
4. Lots of extras
Just like your website theme, the plugins you install on your website also affect your WordPress performance . And the more plugins you have, the more space they take up.
But it's not just about the number of plugins on your website either. If the plugins you're using aren't built for performance, your WordPress site's speed is sure to suffer.
5. WordPress is out of date
We have already discussed that it is important to update themes and plugins frequently, but every part of your website, including WordPress needs regular updates in order for your website to run smoothly.
There are several reasons to update WordPress , but the two most important ones are security and speed. It provides you with updated WordPress protection from any weaknesses or threats that may be present in the previous versions, and often updates fixes errors that lead to slow down Web sites.
So frequent updates are very important for a high performance website. A lot of admins avoid updates because it could cause the website to crash. We recommend that you use MalCare to manage updates securely, without breaking your website.
6. Hidden Malware
If your WordPress is running slow, malware might be one of the reasons for this. Oftentimes, website owners are unaware that malware is hidden within their sites. Malware can severely burden a website and hamper its performance through the use of server resources, while also making it vulnerable to more hacks and attacks.
Depending on the type of malware , your website can also be used as a pawn in large-scale attacks and is blocked by web hosts and search engines .
HTTP requests are a protocol by which any action is taken on a web server. The client or user makes a request to the server , and if the request is accepted, an action is triggered on the server. For example, if you ask to sign in to a website , a request is generated to the server , and if accepted, you are signed in.
If there are too many such requests, the server takes time to process them. Think of it as a movie theater queue, the longer the queue, the more box office it occupied. Likewise, if your website server is busy with too many HTTP requests, this can negatively affect your WordPress performance .
8. Not taking advantage of the cache
You may have heard about the cache before, and read general tips on clearing the cache, but what exactly is a cache and what does it have to do with the speed of your WordPress site?
So when you request any webpage on the internet , you send a request to its server, and when you see a webpage loaded, the server basically responds to many requests you made, like loading title, images, content, etc.
Processing all of these requests may take time. What the cache does is it saves some files from the server to RAM or disk, so it's much faster the next time you load a web page. If you want to speed up WordPress , you will want to make use of the cache and use it to boost the performance of your website.
9. CSS is not optimized
WordPress websites often slow down due to unoptimized CSS. CSS is responsible for the look and feel of the site. Properly optimized CSS contributes greatly to the user experience and makes the website run smoothly. But what is CSS?
CSS, otherwise known as Cascading Style Sheets , is a language used to control the display of a website. To use an analogy, what is a blueprint for a house, CSS is a website.
CSS optimization means that the most important parts of the site must be loaded first, just as the foundation of the house must be laid first. Unoptimized CSS can cause sites to load objects in the wrong order, incorrectly render pages, or worse, appear blank.
10. Unnecessary redirects
Redirect is one of the most useful features of WordPress and saves website owners a lot of trouble from broken or outdated URLs. Although this feature is neat, redirects can affect the performance of your website if they are not optimized.
Too many redirects can affect your WordPress site's load time negatively. That's why it's important to optimize your WordPress redirects so that your website continues to run smoothly. To make sure that malware does not cause additional redirects on your website, you can check out our guide on hacked redirects in WordPress .
Clean up redirects through outdated or broken URLs in order to improve your website's performance.
11. Not using a CDN
The Internet makes everything so easily accessible that we forget that physical distance is still a thing, even with information. Even if you visit a website, the request to upload it goes to a physical server. If this server is located halfway across the world, the response will be slower than usual.
A CDN or Content Delivery Network is a network of servers that distributes content from your website's servers all over the world so that your website's load time is reduced. Not using a CDN can negatively affect the performance of your WordPress site in certain geographies.
12. Too many ads or popups
When someone visits your website, it sends a request to your website's server, which then loads your website pages. When you host ads on your website, there is an extra step involved. Your website server sends a request to ad servers which then load the ad on your website.
The more ads you have, the more servers you interact with, and since there are external servers involved, loading time is slightly affected. However, if these ads are not optimized or hosted on slow servers, it can greatly reduce your website loading speed.
How to speed up a WordPress site
If you've made it this far, you've likely found one or more reasons why your WordPress site is slow. While fixing your own website can be daunting, it is very possible. Here are some of the ways you can speed up your WordPress website.
1. Secure your site from malware
If you suspect that your website is infected with malware, the first thing you need to do is to confirm the hack. For this, you can quickly scan your website with a security plugin like MalCare. MalCare performs a deep scan of your entire website, without slowing it down.
Other scanners use site resources to find malware, so if you've had WordPress performance issues before, they'll get worse before they get better.
If you find malware on your website, don't worry. This is also fixable. MalCare gives you the option to automatically clean your website with a click of a button and protects your website from any follow-up attacks. A clean website is fast, and if you want to speed up your WordPress site , you need to invest in the best WordPress security .
2. Choose a good web hosting service
Bad or incompatible hosting providers can be the reason for your WordPress site to load slow , so you need to make sure that your web host is efficient and compatible. A good hosting service should complement your requirements and take into account the traffic you receive.
If you are paying for limited hosting on a shared server and receive a lot of traffic, your hosting servers will be overloaded and slow down. In this case, a managed hosting solution might be a good solution for you.
Also, make sure that if your hosting provider has servers in the country where most of your traffic comes from. This will ensure a faster loading time for most visitors.
3. Photo Optimization
If you are using images on your website, be sure to optimize them by reducing their size via tools like TinyPNG or JPEG.io. This will greatly improve your site's performance and speed up WordPress if your website is loaded with images. Solutions like Photoshop also allow you to bulk compress your images without losing image quality.
4. Use HTTPv2 over HTTPv1
Securing your website with an SSL certificate will convert your website to HTTPS which is a secure extension of HTTP . Not only will this add to the security of your website, but it will also improve your WordPress so that browsers can support HTTP/2 for your website more easily if your web host is compatible. Since HTTP/2 is better equipped to handle multiple requests, this will improve your WordPress performance .
5. Caching your website
Caching your website can make a huge difference to the performance of your WordPress site . You can take advantage of this with a caching plugin like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache. These plugins will save a lighter version of your website on your server and every time a user requests any web page it will save loading time as it is served directly from the cache.
6. Optimize CSS on your website
There are two main ways to improve CSS for websites : load it inline or by loading it asynchronously. If you decide to load inline CSS, instead of keeping it in a separate CSS file, you will have to put it in the HTML code of the site itself. On the other hand, asynchronous CSS loading means identifying the most important aspects of the site and having them load first, with other invisible elements loaded later or based on clicks. These methods, along with a few other tips and tricks, can significantly speed up WordPress .
7. Choose the right plug-ins
To speed up WordPress , you just need to install the necessary plugins. This will make sure that your website is not overloaded. Even for the plugins you use, you can take a look at their lighter alternatives that are built for performance.
Make sure to research the plugins you choose to install on your website beforehand so you know that the choices you make for your website aren't slowing it down. And update your plugins regularly so that they run smoothly.
8. Update your site regularly
Make sure all parts of your website are regularly updated, including WordPress, themes, and plugins. The main reason is that updated versions are constantly being improved for performance. This will help your website maintain a fast loading time. Additionally, updated versions often contain patches for known vulnerabilities that will help you secure your website against malware.
9. Use a CDN
A content delivery network will take advantage of a network of servers across a region or even globally to ensure that visitors from all over the world can access your website content quickly.
Using a CDN bypasses geographic restrictions that arise with data transmission over long distances, and can help you speed up WordPress .
10. Use a lightweight theme
A nice theme with lots of media elements might look neat, but if it's not optimized for speed, and is bulky, it can really hamper your WordPress performance . Make sure that you are using a lightweight theme on your website and that there aren't any bulky plugins on your WordPress that take up server space. This will ensure that your WordPress site loads quickly and without any hindrance.
11. Take advantage of slow loading
Lazy loading, as the name implies, is a loading technique that uses the concept of inertia to optimize your WordPress for speed. With slow loading, your web pages are created with a placeholder for images and other files. This makes the page much lighter than it would otherwise. When the user needs the resource, the placeholder is replaced with the actual content. This technology is known to optimize web applications and websites for faster loading time.
12. Activate gzip compression
Another way to deal with a lot of content on your website is to compress the site for faster loading speed. Gzip compression is a way that you can compress your site's HTML pages , style sheets, and scripts while sending data to another server.
You can enable gzip compression for your website by adding a " content encoding: gzip " response header to your website, and most browsers will load the compressed versions of your website automatically.
The effect of a slow loading WordPress site
Your WordPress site is an asset, but it's also the first look at your business that your visitors get. Imagine going into a store and it is closed. This is exactly what online visitors feel when they visit a site that is slow to load.
And given that the risks are low when browsing the Internet, your customers' patience levels are also low. This is even more important for Woocommerce sites, as they can lose sales in a matter of seconds if their website isn't fast.
Why is a fast loading site important
Bad website. But is that the only reason you need a fast website? There is more to the speed of your website than just disappointing your customers.
The speed of your WordPress site is one of the ranking factors that Google takes into account when listing search results. The reason for this is that Google wants its search engine users to have the best possible user experience and website speed is a big part of that.
In addition, the faster your site is, the longer the user will stay on it. This will reduce your bounce rate and increase conversions on your website. Every user you keep on your website is an opportunity for potential conversion.
conclusion
Slow websites can cause visitors to leave your website suddenly. To avoid this, you need to ensure that your website loads quickly. There are many factors that affect the speed of your WordPress page . We have covered the most common issues in this article to ensure that you can identify the problem and fix it if necessary.
If malware is the problem that is slowing down your WordPress site, then MalCare is a great tool that not only helps you improve your WordPress performance but also secures it while doing so.
questions and answers
How can I fix a slow WordPress site?
There could be a number of reasons why WordPress loads slowly, such as unoptimized images and CSS, malware, or poor quality themes and plugins. Each of these can have a different solution. However, if you want to improve your overall WordPress performance, a plugin like MalCare can help you get rid of malware, update your website safely, and keep your website secure in the future.
If you notice that your WordPress is running slow, run a quick security scan to rule out malware. You can use a security plugin like MalCare to do the same. If it's malware, you can use the automatic cleanup feature to clean up your website with the click of a button.
Aside from malware, unoptimized files and content on your website can be a major reason for your website to slow down. You can also use caching techniques to speed up WordPress.
Having too many plugins or heavy themes can slow down your WordPress website as they take up server space and processing power. If you want to improve your plugin usage, find the plugins you already install and check if there are lighter versions of the same that you can use instead.
Make sure to use only necessary plugins, so that unnecessary or rarely used plugins do not slow down your WordPress website. Finally, make sure to update all plugins frequently to make sure they are optimized.
You can make WordPress load faster by making use of a number of techniques such as optimizing the CSS and images on your website, using a lightweight theme, updating your website more frequently, using caching techniques, and securing your website against attacks . You can also use a security plugin like MalCare to remove malware from your website and stop it for good so that there are no external factors slowing down your WordPress.
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