{"id":6765,"date":"2019-02-27T05:06:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T04:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/?p=6765"},"modified":"2019-03-14T16:51:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T15:51:22","slug":"how-to-speed-up-and-optimize-wordpress-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wordpress\/how-to-speed-up-and-optimize-wordpress-website\/","title":{"rendered":"How to speed up and optimize WordPress website"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Do you want to speed up your WordPress site? Fast loading pages improve user experience, increase your pageviews, and help with your WordPress SEO. In this post, we will share the most useful WordPress speed optimization tips to boost WordPress performance and speed up your website for the better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60197\" title=\"How to improve WordPress speed and performance\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/wpspeedupguide.png\" alt=\"How to improve WordPress speed and performance\" width=\"550\" height=\"320\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This post is a comprehensive guide to WordPress performance optimization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">We tried to cover everything from why speed is important, what slows down your WordPress site, and actionable steps that you can take to improve your WordPress speed immediately.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">To make it easy, we have highlighted a table of contents to help you guide you through our process<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">\u00a0to speeding up your WordPress site.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"contents\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Table of Contents<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Basics of WordPress Performance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Why Speed is Important for your WordPress Site?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">How to Check Your WordPress Website Speed?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Importance of Good WordPress Hosting<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Speeding Up WordPress in Easy Steps (No Coding)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Install a WordPress Caching Plugin<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize Images for Speed<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>WordPress Performance Optimization Best Practices<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Keep Your WordPress Site Updated<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize Background Processes<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Excerpts on Homepage and Archives<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Split Comments into Pages<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Don\u2019t Upload Audio\/Video Files Directly to WordPress<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use a Theme Optimized For Speed<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Faster Plugins<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Fine-Tuning WordPress for Speed (Advanced)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Split Long Posts into Pages<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Reduce External HTTP Requests<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Reduce Database Calls<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize WordPress Database<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Limit Post Revisions<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Disable Hotlinking and Leeching of Your Content<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Lazy Loading if Needed<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use DNS Level Website Firewall<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Fix HTTPS\/SSL Errors without Plugin<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Latest PHP Version<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 id=\"whyspeed\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Why Speed is Important for Your WordPress Site?<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Studies show that from 2000 to 2016, the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 7 seconds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">What does this mean for you as a website owner?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You have very little time to show users your content and convince them to stay on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">A slow website means users will definitely leave your website before it even loads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">According to a StrangeLoop case study that involved Amazon, Google, and other larger sites, a 1 second delay in page load time can lead to 7% loss in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60163\" title=\"How speed affects your website\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/strangeloopstudy.jpg\" alt=\"How speed affects your website\" width=\"550\" height=\"290\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">On top of that, Google and other search engines have already started penalizing slower websites by pushing them down in the search results which means lower traffic for slow websites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">To sum it all up, if you want more traffic, subscribers, and revenue from your website, then you must make your WordPress website FAST!<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"checkspeed\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">How to Check Your WordPress Website Speed?<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Often beginners think that their website is OK just because it does not feel slow on their computer. That\u2019s a HUGE mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Since you frequently visit your own website, modern browsers like Chrome store your website in the cache and automatically prefetch it as soon as you start typing an address. This makes your website load almost instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">However, a normal user who is visiting your website for the first time may not have the same experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">In fact, users in different geographical locations will have a completely different experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This is why we recommend that you test your website speed using a tool like IsItWP\u2019s\u00a0<a title=\"Free website speed test tool for WordPress\" href=\"https:\/\/www.isitwp.com\/free-website-speed-test-tool-for-wordpress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WordPress speed test<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">It is a free online tool that allows you to test your website\u2019s speed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60189\" title=\"IsItWP speed test tool\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/speedtesttool.png\" alt=\"IsItWP speed test tool\" width=\"550\" height=\"264\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">After you run your website speed test, you might be wondering what is a good or normal website speed that I should aim for?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">A good page load time is under 2 seconds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">However, the faster you can make it, the better it is. A few milliseconds of improvements here and there can add up to shaving off half or even a full second from your load time.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"whyslow\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">What Slows Down Your WordPress Website?<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Your speed test report will likely have multiple recommendations for improvement. However, most of that is technical jargon which is hard for beginners to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Learning what slows down your website is the key to improving performance and making smarter long-term decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">The primary causes for a slow WordPress website are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Web Hosting<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 When your web hosting server is not properly configured it can hurt your website speed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>WordPress Configuration<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 If your WordPress site is not serving cached pages, then it will overload your server thus causing your website to be slow or crash entirely.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Page Size<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Mainly images that are not optimized for web.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Bad Plugins<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 If you are using a poorly coded plugin, then it can significantly slow down your website.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>External scripts<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 External scripts such as ads, font loaders, etc can also have a huge impact on your website performance.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Now that you know what slows down your WordPress website, let\u2019s take a look at how to speed up your WordPress website.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"goodhost\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Importance of Good WordPress Hosting<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Your\u00a0<a title=\"How to Choose The Best WordPress Hosting?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/web-hosting\/2019-best-wordpress-hosting-plan\/\">WordPress hosting<\/a>\u00a0service plays an important role in website performance. A good\u00a0shared hosting\u00a0provider like SkyTechNG\u00a0take the extra measures to optimize your website for performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">However, on shared hosting you share the server resources with many other customers. This means that if your neighboring site gets a lot of traffic, then it can impact the entire server performance which in turn will slow down your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">On the other hand, using a\u00a0<a title=\"When Do You Really Need Managed WordPress Hosting?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/web-hosting\/how-to-choose-the-best-wordpress-hosting-plan\/\">managed WordPress hosting<\/a>\u00a0service give you the most optimized server configurations to run WordPress. Managed WordPress hosting companies also offer automatic backups, automatic WordPress updates, and more advanced security configurations to protect your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">We recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.webhosting.skytechng.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SkyTechNG<\/a> as our preferred managed WordPress hosting provider. They are also the most popular one in the industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Speeding Up WordPress in Easy Steps (No Coding)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">We know that making changes to your website configuration can be a terrifying thought for beginners, especially if you are not technically inclined.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But do not worry, you are not alone. We have helped thousands of WordPress users improve their WordPress performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">We will show you how you can speed up your WordPress site with just a few clicks (no coding required).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you can point-and-click, then you can do this!<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"cachingplugin\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Install a WordPress Caching Plugin<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress pages are \u201cdynamic.\u201d This means they are built on the fly every time someone visits a post or page on your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">To build your pages, WordPress has to run a process to find the required information, put it all together, and then display it to your user.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This process involves a lot of steps, and it can really slow down your website when you have multiple people visiting it at once.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">That is why we recommend that every WordPress site must use a caching plugin. Caching can make your WordPress site anywhere from 2x to 5x faster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Here is how it works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Instead of going through the whole page generation process every time, your caching plugin makes a copy of the page after the first load, and then serves that cached version to every subsequent user.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60165\" title=\"Page caching\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/pagecaching.png\" alt=\"Page caching\" width=\"550\" height=\"442\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As you can see in the graphics above, when a user visits your WordPress site, your server retrieves information from a MySQL database and your PHP files. It then puts it all together into HTML content which is served to the user.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">It is a long process, but you can skip a lot of it when you use caching instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">There are a lot of good\u00a0WordPress caching plugins\u00a0available, but we recommend using either\u00a0WP Rocket\u00a0(premium), WP Fastest Cache (Premium) or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-super-cache\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WP Super Cache<\/a>\u00a0(free) plugin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>Bonus:<\/strong>\u00a0You can combine caching plugins with a\u00a0web application firewall\u00a0like CloudFlare or\u00a0Sucuri\u00a0for maximum performance boost.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"optimizeimages\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize Images for Speed<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60166\" title=\"Optimizing images for speed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/images\/optimizeimages.png\" alt=\"Optimizing images for speed\" width=\"550\" height=\"300\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Images bring life to your content and help boost engagement. Researchers have found that using colored visuals makes people 80% more likely to read your content.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">However, if your images are not optimized, then they could be hurting more than helping. In fact, non-optimized images are one of the most common speed issues that we see on beginner websites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Before you upload a photo directly from your phone or camera, we recommend that you use photo editing software to optimize your images for the web.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">In their original formats, these photos can have huge file sizes. But based on the\u00a0<strong>image file format<\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0<strong>compression<\/strong>\u00a0you choose in your editing software, you can decrease your image size by up to 5x.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">At SkyTechNG, we only use two image formats: JPEG and PNG.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Now you might be wondering: what is the difference?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Well,\u00a0<strong>PNG<\/strong>\u00a0image format is uncompressed. When you compress an image it loses some information, so an uncompressed image will be higher quality with more detail. The downside is that it is a larger file size, so it takes longer to load.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><strong>JPEG<\/strong>, on the other hand, is a compressed file format which slightly reduces image quality, but it is significantly smaller in size.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">So how do we decide which image format to choose?<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If our photo or image has a lot of different colors, then we use JPEG.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If it is a simpler image or we need a transparent image, then we use PNG.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">The majority of our images are JPEGs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Below is a comparison chart of the file sizes and different compression tool that we could have used for the StrangeLoop image used above.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60167\" title=\"Image speed chart\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/images\/imagespeedchart.png\" alt=\"Image speed chart\" width=\"550\" height=\"342\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As you can see in the chart, the image format you use can make a HUGE difference in website performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">you can use a plugin like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/ewww-image-optimizer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>EWWW Image Optimizer <\/b><\/a>to optimize\u00a0your images for speed<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress Performance Optimization Best Practices<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">After installing a caching plugin and optimizing your images, you will notice your site will start loading a lot faster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But if you really want to keep your website as fast as possible, you will need to use the best practices listed below.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">These tips are not too technical, so you do not need to know any code to implement them. But using them will prevent common problems that will slow down your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"updates\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Keep Your WordPress Site Updated<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60168\" title=\"Keep WordPress updated\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/updates.png\" alt=\"Keep WordPress updated\" width=\"550\" height=\"215\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As a well maintained open source project, WordPress is updated frequently. Each update will not only offer new features but it will also fix security issues and bugs. Your WordPress theme and plugins may have regular updates, too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As a website owner, it is your responsibility to keep your WordPress site, theme, and plugins updated to the latest versions. not updating your website my make<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">\u00a0your site slow and unreliable, and make you vulnerable to security threats.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"bgprocesses\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize Background Processes<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Background processes in WordPress are scheduled tasks that run in the background of your WordPress site. Following are some examples of background tasks that run on a WordPress site:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress Backup plugin tasks<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress cron jobs to publish scheduled posts<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress cron jobs to check for updates<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Search engines and other crawlers trying to fetch content<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Tasks like cron jobs for scheduled posts and updates have minimal impact on website performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">However, other background processes like backup plugins and excessive crawling by search engines can slow down a website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">For backup plugins, you need to make sure that your\u00a0WordPress backup plugin\u00a0only run during low traffic time on your website. You also need to adjust the frequency of backups and data that needs to be backed up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">For example, if you are creating a complete daily backup while you only publish new content twice a week, then you need to adjust that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you want more frequent backups such as real-time backups, then we recommend using a SaaS solution so you are not taxing your server.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As for crawling, you need to keep an eye on your crawl reports in Google Search console. Frequent crawls that are ending up in errors can cause your website to slow down or become unresponsive.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"excerpts\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Excerpts on Homepage, News page, Blog page and Archives<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-6770\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-300x127.png\" alt=\"Excerpts on Homepage\" width=\"500\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-300x127.png 300w, https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-768x324.png 768w, https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-1024x432.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-280x118.png 280w, https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage-1170x493.png 1170w, https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Excerpts-on-Homepage.png 1366w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">By default, WordPress displays the full content of each article on your homepage, News page, Blog page and archives. This means your homepage, categories, tags, and other archive pages will all load slower.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Another disadvantage of showing full articles on these pages is that users do not feel the need to visit the actual article. This can reduce your pageviews, and the time your users spend on your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">In order to speed up your loading times for archive pages, you can set your site to display excerpts instead of the full content.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can navigate to\u00a0<strong>Settings \u00bb Reading<\/strong>\u00a0and select \u201cFor each article in a feed, show: Summary\u201d instead of \u201cFull Text.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60170\" title=\"Display excerpts instead of full text to boost WordPress speed\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/wpdisplayexcerpts.png\" alt=\"Display excerpts instead of full text to boost WordPress speed\" width=\"550\" height=\"260\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"splitcomments\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Split Comments into Pages<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60171\" title=\"Paginate comments\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/paginatecomments.png\" alt=\"Paginate comments\" width=\"550\" height=\"302\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Getting lots of\u00a0comments on your blog posts? Congratulations! That\u2019s a great indicator of an engaged audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But the downside is, loading all those comments can impact your site\u2019s speed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress comes with a built-in solution for that. Simply go to\u00a0<strong>Settings \u00bb Discussion<\/strong>\u00a0and check the box next to the \u201cBreak comments into pages\u201d option.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60173\" title=\"Break comments in pages\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/breakcomments.png\" alt=\"Break comments in pages\" width=\"550\" height=\"181\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"usecdn\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Remember how we mentioned above that users in different geographical locations may experience different loading times on your site?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">That is because the location of your\u00a0web hosting servers\u00a0can have an impact on your site speed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">For example, let\u2019s say your web hosting company has its servers in the United States. A visitor who is also in the United States will generally see faster loading times than a visitor in India.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN), can help to speed up loading times for all of your visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">A CDN is a network made up of servers all around the world. Each server will store \u201cstatic\u201d files used to make up your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">These static files include unchanging files such as images, CSS, and JavaScript, unlike your WordPress pages which are \u201cdynamic\u201d as explained above.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">When you use a CDN, every time a user visits your website they are served those static files from whichever server is closest to them. Your own web hosting server will also be faster since the CDN is doing a lot of the work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can see how it works in this infographic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><a title=\"Why You Need a CDN for your WordPress Blog? [Infographic]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/beginners-guide\/why-you-need-a-cdn-for-your-wordpress-blog-infographic\/?display=wide\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60174\" title=\"What is a CDN?\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/whatiscdnmini.jpg\" alt=\"What is a CDN?\" width=\"550\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">We use recommend using\u00a0<a title=\"StackPath CDN\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stackpath.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">StackPath CDN<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">It works well with WordPress websites and compliments your existing WordPress caching plugins for even faster loading times.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"uploadvideos\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Do not Upload Audio\/Video Files Directly to WordPress<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60175\" title=\"Use video hosting services like YouTube\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/images\/youtube.png\" alt=\"Use video hosting services like YouTube\" width=\"550\" height=\"320\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You\u00a0<em>can<\/em>\u00a0directly upload audio and video files to your WordPress site, and it will automatically display them in an HTML5 player\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But you should NEVER do that!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Hosting audio and videos will cost you bandwidth. You could be charged overage fees by your web hosting company, or they may even shut down your site altogether, even if your plan includes \u201cunlimited\u201d bandwidth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Hosting large media files also increases your backup sizes tremendously, and makes it difficult for you to\u00a0restore WordPress from backup.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Instead, you should use an audio and video hosting service like YouTube,\u00a0Vimeo, DailyMotion, SoundCloud, etc., and let them take care of the hard work. They have the bandwidth for it!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress has a built-in video embed feature, so you can copy and paste your video\u2019s URL directly into your post and it will embed automatically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you are\u00a0making a podcast website with WordPress, then we recommend podcast hosting service\u00a0Blubrry\u00a0for the best performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"themespeed\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use a Theme Optimized For Speed<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60176\" title=\"Choose a theme optimized for speed\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/perfecttheme.png\" alt=\"Choose a theme optimized for speed\" width=\"550\" height=\"347\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">When selecting a theme for your website, it is important to pay special attention to speed optimization. Some beautiful and impressive-looking themes are actually poorly coded and can slow your site way down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">It is usually better to go with a simpler theme than to choose a theme that is bloated with complex layouts, flashy animations, and other unnecessary features. You can always add those features using quality WordPress plugins.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Premium WordPress theme shops like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themegram.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Themegram<\/a>,\u00a0StudioPress,\u00a0Themify,\u00a0CSSIgniter\u00a0offer themes that are well coded and optimized for speed. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"fasterplugins\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Faster Plugins<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60186\" title=\"Choose faster plugins for your website\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/fasterplugins.png\" alt=\"Choose faster plugins for your website\" width=\"550\" height=\"340\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Poorly coded WordPress plugins often load too much bloat whether your site needs it or not. This increases your page load speed and slows down your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">To help you choose the best plugins, we often publish our expert pick of best WordPress plugin showcases. We pay special attention to ease of use, user experience, and most importantly performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Following are some of our picks for the most common WordPress plugin categories.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wpforms.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WPForms<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Fastest and most beginner friendly\u00a0contact form plugin\u00a0for WordPress.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><a title=\"Soliloquy\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/refer\/soliloquy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Soliloquy<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 If you want to add sliders to your site, then Soliloquy is the\u00a0best WordPress slider plugin\u00a0in terms of performance and features.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><a title=\"Envira Gallery\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/refer\/envira-gallery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Envira Gallery<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Photo gallery plugins can also slow down WordPress. We ran the tests and found Envira Gallery to be the\u00a0fastest photo gallery plugin\u00a0for WordPress.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><a title=\"Shared Counts\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wordpress.org\/plugins\/shared-counts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Shared Counts<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Social media plugins load additional scripts and not so gracefully. Shared Counts is one of the fastest Social media plugins for WordPress.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Apart from our own recommendations, you can run your own tests. Simply run speed tests before and after installing a plugin to compare its impact on performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Fine-Tuning WordPress for Speed (Advanced)<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">By using the WordPress optimization best practices and basic speed tips listed above, you should see a big improvement in your site\u2019s loading times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But every fraction of a second counts. If you want to get the very fastest speed possible, then you will want to make a few more changes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">The following tips are a little more technical, with some requiring you to modify your site files or have a basic understanding of\u00a0PHP. You will want to make sure to\u00a0backup your site first\u00a0just in case.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"splitlongposts\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Split Long Posts into Pages<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60177\" title=\"Split long posts in pages\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/paginateposts.jpg\" alt=\"Split long posts in pages\" width=\"550\" height=\"262\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Readers tend to love blog posts that are longer and more in-depth. Longer posts even tend to rank higher in search engines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But if you are publishing long-form articles with lots of images, it could be hurting your loading times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Instead, consider splitting up your longer posts into multiple pages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress comes with built-in functionality to do that. Simply add the\u00a0<code>&lt;!\u2013\u2013nextpage\u2013\u2013&gt;<\/code>\u00a0tag in your article where you want to split it into next page. Do that again if you want to split the article on to the next page as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"externalrequests\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Reduce External HTTP Requests<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60178\" title=\"Reduce cross-domain HTTP requests\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/reducehttpreqs.png\" alt=\"Reduce cross-domain HTTP requests\" width=\"550\" height=\"265\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Many WordPress plugins and themes load all kinds of files from other websites. These files can include scripts, stylesheets, and images from external resources like Google, Facebook, analytics services, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">It is ok to use a few of these. Many of these files are optimized to load as quickly as possible, so it is faster than hosting them on your own website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But if your plugins are making a lot of these requests, then it could slow down your website significantly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can reduce all these external HTTP requests by disabling scripts and styles or merging them into one file. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"databasecalls\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Reduce Database Calls<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60179\" title=\"Reduce database calls\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/reducedbcalls.png\" alt=\"Reduce database calls\" width=\"550\" height=\"320\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Note: This step is a little more technical and will require basic knowledge of PHP and\u00a0WordPress template files.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Unfortunately, there are a lot of poorly coded WordPress themes out there. They ignore WordPress standard practices and end up making direct database calls, or too many unnecessary requests to the database. This can really slow down your server by giving it too much work to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Even well-coded themes can have code that makes database calls just to get your blog\u2019s basic information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">In this example, every time you see\u00a0<code>&lt;?php<\/code>, that\u2019s the start of a new database call:<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div id=\"highlighter_444772\" class=\"syntaxhighlighter php\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"gutter\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">1<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">2<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">3<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number4 index3 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">4<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"code\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;html xmlns=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\"<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">dir=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"&lt;?php language_attributes(); ?&gt;\"<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;head profile=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"http:\/\/gmpg.org\/xfn\/11\"<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;meta http-equiv=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"Content-Type\"<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">content=\"&lt;?php bloginfo(<\/code><code class=\"php string\">'html_type'<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">); ?&gt; <\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number4 index3 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">charset=&lt;?php bloginfo(<\/code><code class=\"php string\">'charset'<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">); ?&gt;\" \/&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can not blame theme developers for that. They simply have no other way to find out what language your site is in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">But if you are customizing your site using a\u00a0child theme, then you can replace these database calls with your specific information in order to reduce all those database calls.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div id=\"highlighter_900743\" class=\"syntaxhighlighter php\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"gutter\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">1<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">2<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">3<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"code\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;html xmlns=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml\"<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">dir=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"ltr\"<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;head profile=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"http:\/\/gmpg.org\/xfn\/11\"<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">&lt;meta http-equiv=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"Content-Type\"<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">content=<\/code><code class=\"php string\">\"text\/html; charset=UTF-8\"<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">\/&gt;<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Review your parent theme for instances like this that can be easily replaced with static information.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"optimizedb\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Optimize WordPress Database<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60180\" title=\"WordPress database optimization\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn4.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/optimizedb.png\" alt=\"WordPress database optimization\" width=\"550\" height=\"300\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">After using WordPress for a while, your database will have lots of information that you probably do not need any more. For improved performance, you can optimize your database to get rid of all that unnecessary information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This can be easily managed with the\u00a0<a title=\"WP-Sweep plugin\" href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/wp-sweep\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WP-Sweep plugin<\/a>. It allows you to clean your WordPress database by deleting things like trashed posts, revisions, unused tags, etc. It will also optimize your database\u2019s structure with just a click.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"limitrevisions\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Limit Post Revisions<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60181\" title=\"Limit post revisions in WordPress\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/postrevisions.png\" alt=\"Limit post revisions in WordPress\" width=\"550\" height=\"272\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Post revisions\u00a0take up space in your WordPress database. Some users believe that revisions can also affect some database queries run by plugins. If the plugin does not specifically exclude post revisions, it might slow down your site by searching through them unnecessarily.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can easily limit the number of revisions WordPress keeps for each article. Simply add this line of code to your wp-config.php file.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div id=\"highlighter_258065\" class=\"syntaxhighlighter php\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"gutter\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">1<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"code\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">define( <\/code><code class=\"php string\">'WP_POST_REVISIONS'<\/code><code class=\"php plain\">, 4 );<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This code will limit WordPress to only save your last 4 revisions of each post or page, and discard older revisions automatically.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"disablehotlinking\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Disable Hotlinking and Leaching of Your Content<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60182\" title=\"Prevent image theft in WordPress\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/images\/disablehotlinking.png\" alt=\"Prevent image theft in WordPress\" width=\"550\" height=\"300\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you are creating quality content on your WordPress site, then the sad truth is that it will probably get stolen sooner or later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">One way this happens is when other websites serve your images directly from their URLs on your website, instead of uploading them to their own servers. In effect, they are stealing your web hosting bandwidth, and you do not get any traffic to show for it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Simply add this code to your\u00a0.htaccess file\u00a0to block hotlinking of images from your WordPress site.<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<div id=\"highlighter_882152\" class=\"syntaxhighlighter php\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"gutter\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">1<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">2<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">3<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number4 index3 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">4<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number5 index4 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">5<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number6 index5 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">6<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<td class=\"code\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"line number1 index0 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden <\/code><code class=\"php keyword\">or<\/code> <code class=\"php plain\">custom image option<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number2 index1 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">RewriteEngine on<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number3 index2 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number4 index3 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?:<\/code><code class=\"php comments\">\/\/(www\\.)?skytechng.com [NC]<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number5 index4 alt2\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?:<\/code><code class=\"php comments\">\/\/(www\\.)?google.com [NC]<\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line number6 index5 alt1\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><code class=\"php plain\">RewriteRule \\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ \u2013 [NC,F,L] <\/code><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Note: Don\u2019t forget to change skytechng.com with your own domain.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"lazyloading\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Lazy Loading if Needed<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60192\" title=\"Use lazy loading in WordPress\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/lazyloadimages.png\" alt=\"Use lazy loading in WordPress\" width=\"550\" height=\"320\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you add many images, multiple video embeds, and photo galleries to your blog posts, then your site can benefit from lazy loading.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Instead of loading all your images and videos at once, lazy loading downloads only those that will be visible on the user\u2019s screen. It replaces all other images and video embeds with a placeholder image.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">As a user scrolls down, your website loads images that are now visible in the browser\u2019s viewing area. You can lazy load images, videos, and even WordPress comments and gravatars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">For images, iframes, and videos, you can use the\u00a0Lazy Load by WP Rocket\u00a0plugin or WP Fastest Cache Plugin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"dnsfirewall\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use DNS Level Website Firewall<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60193\" title=\"Use DNS level firewall\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn3.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/dnsfirewall.png\" alt=\"Use DNS level firewall\" width=\"550\" height=\"291\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">A\u00a0WordPress firewall plugin\u00a0helps you\u00a0block brute force attacks, hacking attempts, and malware. However, not all firewall plugins are the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Some of them run on your website, this means attackers are already able to reach your web server before they get blocked. This is still effective for security, but not optimal for performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This is why we recommend using a DNS level firewall like\u00a0Sucuri\u00a0or\u00a0<a title=\"Cloudflare\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudflare.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Cloudflare<\/a>. These firewalls block maclious requests even before they reach your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"fixhttpserrors\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Fix HTTPS\/SSL Errors without Plugin<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60194\" title=\"Using inspect tool to fix mixed content error\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.wpbeginner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/inspecttool2.png\" alt=\"Using inspect tool to fix mixed content error\" width=\"550\" height=\"314\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If you are\u00a0switching your site to HTTPS\/SSL, then it is likely that you may run across\u00a0mixed content errors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">The easiest way to fix this is by installing a plugin like\u00a0Really Simple SSL. However, the problem is that these plugins catch all URLs first, then change them to HTTPS before sending them to user\u2019s browsers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">This has a small but noticeable performance impact. You can reduce this by manually fixing all URLs. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4 id=\"latestphp\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Use Latest PHP Version<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">WordPress is mainly written in the PHP programming language. It is a server side language, which means it is installed and runs on your hosting server.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">All good WordPress hosting companies use the most stable PHP version on their servers. However, it is possible that your hosting company is running a slightly older PHP version.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">The newer PHP 7 is two times faster than its predecessors. That is a huge performance boost that your website must take advantage of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">You can see which PHP version your site is using by installing and activating the\u00a0<a title=\"Version Info\" href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/plugins\/version-info\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Version Info<\/a>\u00a0plugin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Upon activation, the plugin will show your PHP version in the footer area of your WordPress admin dashboard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60187\" title=\"PHP version in WordPress admin dashboard\" src=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/images\/phpversion.png\" alt=\"PHP version in WordPress admin dashboard\" width=\"550\" height=\"272\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">If your website is using a version lower than PHP 7, then ask your hosting provider to update it for you. If they are unable to do so, then it is time to find a new\u00a0<a title=\"How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting in 2019 (Compared)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/web-hosting\/2019-best-wordpress-hosting-plan\/\">WordPress hosting company<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 19px;\">Go ahead and try out these techniques. Do not forget to test your website speed before and after implementing these best practices. You will be surprised these changes will boost your WordPress performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><strong>We can help you optimize your WordPress Website for Speed.. Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wordpress-speed-optimization-service\/\">Click Here<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you want to speed up your WordPress site? Fast loading pages improve user experience, increase your pageviews, and help with your WordPress SEO. In this post, we will share the most useful WordPress speed optimization tips to boost WordPress performance and speed up your website for the better. This post is a comprehensive guide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":6766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skytechng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}