WordPress hosting has revolutionized the internet in many ways. For many people, it was their guide to creating a functional website. Whether it was a small business looking to expand or an artist sharing their work, WordPress made it happen. However, just because you create a site, it doesn’t mean your responsibilities are over.
You have to improve your site consistent with the use of managed WordPress hosting and other amenities.
You have to make sure that visitors have a smooth and safe experience. And in this article, we will show you a few ways for you to do just that.
#1 Find Out If Something's Wrong
We should start by determining where your site currently stands in terms of performance. There is no single metric that can be used to summarize this because performance varies depending on the geographic region of the user, the strength of their internet connection, and whether or not their browser caches your site.
Test your site’s performance with a free measuring tool to receive the most accurate tangible assessment. Paste in your home page URL to check how well your site performs. The software will also give you some speed suggestions that you may use to improve your website’s performance before another check.
#2 Pick a Reliable Host
The basis of a fast WordPress site is a high-quality web hosting service. Selecting a hosting provider and a package that meets your bandwidth and performance requirements are critical decisions you must make. In addition to shared and dedicated hosting, virtual private server (VPS) and managed WordPress hosting plans are offered by most WordPress secure hosting services.
#3 Stay Up to Date
All of your WordPress site components — the core, themes, plugins, and even the PHP code — must be updated to ensure that your site runs as effectively as possible. You should always use the most recent version to improve performance, keep your site safe, solve patch issues, and ensure that every feature and tool works properly and efficiently.
#4 Get Rid of Outdated Plugins
First, disable any plugins that you are certain you will never use again. Test your site after each deactivation. You can delete these plugins once you’ve confirmed that everything is still functional. Then, one by one, deactivate the plugins to observe which ones make a difference in the speed of your website. Consider looking for less resource-intensive alternatives to these plugins.
#5 Keep It Simple
Themes that are jam-packed with high-quality imagery and effects may appear appealing, but they are not without drawbacks. To achieve complex effects, a large amount of code must be written, and many themes are developed inefficiently, both of which increase file sizes and slow down page speed.
Choose a theme that is straightforward and contains only the functions that are necessary for your pages. If you want to, you can always add more effects later on using plugins or custom CSS if you like.
#6 Keep Code Minimal
CSS and JavaScript are critical components of your website. These files must be transmitted from your webserver to a web browser each time a visitor loads a page on your website. Consequently, the smaller you can make these files without impairing the appearance or operation of your site, the faster your pages will load on the web.
Install a free WordPress plugin that checks your CSS and JavaScript files and removes any extraneous code (such as spaces and comments) while compressing the files to make them load more quickly.
#7 Use a CDN
Devices located further away from your web server’s physical location will have a greater difficulty viewing your pages. This fact has a particular impact on overseas users and users in remote areas. Fortunately, you can mitigate this effect by utilizing a Content Delivery Network or CDN.
A content delivery network (CDN) is a global collection of web servers that are all connected. Each server maintains a copy of the JavaScript, CSS, and picture files that make up your website. When a user requests a page from your website, the files are sent to them by the server that is nearest to the user. A content delivery network (CDN) extends your website’s global reach and ensures that all users, near and distant, have the same loading speed.
Conclusion
Like many other parts of WordPress website hosting, optimization is entirely your responsibility. Fortunately, there are various tactics you can take to minimize your load time and deliver the most enjoyable user experience possible for your visitors. It’s well worth your while to put in a little effort to save your guests a lot of time.