Monday, August 5, 2013

5 Simple Methods To Raise The Loading Speed Of A Wordpress Site

By Ali Mehmood


As you probably know, Google is using site speed as a ranking factor. The speedier a website is, the higher it is likely to rank in search engines. Wordpress comes with incredible features but a majority of of these functions are extremely resource intensive for shared web servers. Thankfully there are many easy methods to speed things up and boost the overall performance of your WordPress based website. Here are some tips on how to do so:

Optimize your database - This is probably the most frequently overlooked way to speed up a WordPress site. Keeping tons of spam comments in your website's database slows down its loading speed. However, this doesn't mean that you should remove all the comments. Only get rid of the ones you do not need. To achieve this, just click the 'empty spam' button in your WordPress dash. Make sure you do this frequently to avoid the buildup of junk comments in your WordPress blog.

Compress the graphics - Using too many unoptimized images on a webpage can have a negative impact on performance. Before uploading an image file you should compress it with the help of Photoshop or any other similar application. Almost all popular photo editing programs are capable of compressing a picture without decreasing its quality. Alternatively you can install WP Smush It! on your site. This nifty plugin automatically compresses each image added to a post or page. You can also go to the media library and optimize all the existing images.

Delete unneeded plug-ins - One common blunder that many inexperienced WordPress users make is installing too many needless plug-ins. Plugins are a good way to add new features to WordPress but they may also reduce loading speed. You should just keep the plug-ins that are essential for the proper functioning of your blog. All others must be uninstalled completely. Additionally, you should only use plugins created by well-known coders mainly because code compiled by novice people is often inefficient.

Use a cache plugin - By default the WordPress database is queried on each and every page load. A cache plugin essentially takes a 'picture' of your site's content and provides it to your visitors without requesting it from your database each time. Using a caching plugin helps ensure that your website's content is served without the need for generating it over and over again.

Select your template wisely - Complicated and large themes can slow your WordPress website. It's for this reason that you should select your theme wisely, especially if you'd like to make your site load more quickly. Furthermore, a simple theme can provide other benefits like built-in security enhancements and beautiful designs. Also, ensure that the WordPress theme you select must have SEO features so that you can get to the first page of Google.




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