How To Speed Up Your WordPress Website In 20 Minutes
Some people who often do website optimization may already know that website page speed is very important. This is confirmed in the article about Google Ranking Factors. A good website speed is checked using page speed insight, starting from 90-100.
Now for those of you who have a WordPress website and feel that it is not optimal in terms of speed, you can read this article to the end. On this occasion, we will discuss an article on how to speed up your WordPress website in 20 minutes. Please read this article to the end.
Table of Contents
How to Speed Up a WordPress Website In 20 Minutes
Here are some tips and ways to speed up a WordPress website.
Remove Unused Plugins
This section does not need to be done if you just have a new WordPress site, because at the beginning of installing WordPress only a few plugins were installed and it didn’t have an impact on speed. But you can delete it if you don’t need it.
For those of you who have installed many unused plugins, now is the time for you to remove them. Because some of these plugins can affect page speed, so we recommend deactivating and removing unnecessary plugins.
Be careful when removing plugins. If you are not sure if the plugin is needed, then leave the plugin there.
Install Caching Plugins
Caching is the process of temporarily storing files so they can be sent to visitors more efficiently.
There are two types of caching:
- Browser cache: Stores common files such as logos on users’ hard drives so they don’t have to re-download them on repeat or subsequent visits.
- Server caching: Stores a fully built static version of the page on the server so it doesn’t have to be rebuilt every time a new visitor requests it.
You can use the WP Rocket plugin in this case. You just need to buy the plugin, install it and activate it. Basic caching (server and browser) is on by default. If your site is responsive, go to cache settings and check the box to enable caching for mobile devices as well.
But if you want a free version of the caching plugin, you can use W3 Total Cache
Switch DNS Provider to Cloudflare
A website is a file on a hard drive (server) that is connected to the internet. And every device connected to the internet has an IP address (for example, 123.123.12.1).
Because IP addresses are hard to remember, domain names are mapped to IP addresses using DNS, which stands for Domain Name System. You can think of this as a web phone book. When you type a domain into a browser, a DNS lookup occurs to find the server IP address.
But here’s the thing; many people use free DNS providers from their domain registrars, which are usually slow.
If this is you, switch to a faster DNS provider like Cloudflare.
To do this, sign up for a free Cloudflare account. Click “Add site”, enter your domain name, and click the button.
Choose a free plan, then click “Confirm plan”.
Cloudflare will now give you a chance to review your DNS settings before continuing. If there’s no warning, it’s usually safe to continue.
Now all you have to do is swap your nameservers for your domain registrar. How to do this varies from the registrar, so don’t hesitate to ask for their support if you’re not sure how to do it.
Minimize Your Code
Remove spaces and comments from code to reduce file size. Smaller files result in faster loading times.
If you’re using WPRocket, check the box for minifying CSS and JavaScript in the settings.
If you are not using WP Rocket, install and enable Autoptimize and do the same.
Be aware that you should always test how this affects your website before implementing it live. Minifying code can often cause code to break, especially when it comes to Javascript. So make sure after using this method, the website still has a normal appearance and function.
Optimize Google Fonts
Many themes use Google Fonts, and these fonts have to be downloaded from Google’s servers every time someone visits your website. That can be a time-consuming process as your server has to make an HTTP request, download the CSS file and then download the font from the location referenced in the stylesheet. It must be done for every font on the page.
If you use WPRocket, it automatically optimizes Google Fonts requests. Otherwise, Swap Google Fonts Display is a good starting point.
Enable Preloading
Preloading allows you to specify important resources, so the browser knows the priority of files to load.
For example, your code looks like this:
<html>
<head>
<script type = ”text / javascript” src = ”somefile.js”> </script>
<link rel = ”stylesheet” href = ”/ style.css”>
</head>
<body>
Konten
</body>
</html>
Based on this code, the JavaScript file must be loaded first because of the hierarchy. That’s not ideal because CSS files are almost certainly more important than JavaScript code.
The easiest way to solve it is to add another line of code, like this:
<link rel = "preload" href = "/ style.css" as = "style">The code tells the browser to prioritize CSS files over JavaScript files, regardless of the hierarchy.
You can add the preloading attribute manually by editing the code, but it can be an error and confusing unless you know what you’re doing. This will be much easier to do using WP Rocket, which does this automatically out of the box.
Use CDN
Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a group of servers distributed worldwide. Each keeps a copy of your site so it’s faster for users to connect when requesting a web page.
For example, let’s say your web host’s server is in the United Kingdom. If someone is visiting your site from the US and you are not using a CDN, the connection between their device and your server will be slow. If someone is visiting from the US and you are on a CDN, their device will connect to the nearest server, which helps everything connect faster.
Optimize Image
Images are very influential on website speed. If the image has a very large size it will make the website page sluggish. To work around this, compress your images with a plugin like Shortpixel. Just install it, activate it, go to settings, enter your API key, click “Bulk Save and Open Process, then click” Restart optimization”.
If you find that the quality is too low, go to settings, and change the compression type to glossy or lossless.
Conclusion
So that’s the discussion on how to speed up your WordPress website in 20 minutes. But if you’ve implemented some of the things above or maybe all of them but don’t give maximum results also in terms of speed, then the hosting you are using might be the problem.
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