How to speed up the loading time of WordPress website

Last updated on May 5, 2023

No matter you are on the expressway in the city center or on the information expressway, no one likes to drive slowly. There is nothing you can do for Grandma who is driving at 30 miles per hour on the fast lane. Fortunately, you can take various measures to speed up the loading time of the WordPress website.

In this article, we shared the main reasons why website speed is critical and why website speed is slow, as well as our important tips on how to speed up the loading time of WordPress websites.

Why website speed matters

Site speed is a key predictor of your website's success. Slow websites may damage your business.

The impacts of slow website loading include:

• Poor customer experience. Making users wait for your website to load will leave a bad first impression. If you are waiting for a tenant, you will not leave them in the front porch for a few minutes after they ring the doorbell. Fast loading websites will show website visitors that you expect them, are ready to receive them, and value their time.
• Low conversion rate. People have no patience. They don't wait for slow loading websites. They will leave before completing the purchase or filling out the lead form. Increasing the speed of website loading can improve the conversion rate.
• Poor search ranking. Search engines know that people are impatient. When Google and other search engines crawl your website, they will record the loading time of the website. Search engines give priority to websites that load faster, and reward them with better rankings.

What causes slow website load time?

Your WordPress website should work like a well functioning machine, but when it starts to slow down, you can only solve the problem. Unfortunately, the website does not provide clues to check engine lights or other problems. But you can use this list as a starting point when troubleshooting slow loading WordPress websites.

Common reasons for slow websites include:

• Low quality hosting. In terms of trusteeship, every penny counts. In a cheaper hosting plan, if another site on the same server experiences an influx of traffic, your site is more likely to slow down.
• Unoptimized image. High resolution images are useful if you want to make prints for the walls of a gallery. If you try to add the same image to the gallery on your website, your website speed will plummet.
• The HTTP request is overloaded. If there are too many requests, such as trying to load multiple scripts or CSS files, you can reduce the weight of the page.
• Plug in problem. Faulty plug-ins may cause errors or slow down your website.
• Poor cache. Unstable or poor caching may slow down the site because more loading work is required than necessary instead of storing page versions.

How to speed up the loading time of WordPress website through 10 steps

Now that you know what may cause the website to slow, let's review how to fix it. Make sure your website does these 10 things to make it overspeed.

1. Upgrade hosting service provider. If there is no suitable host, there is nothing you can do to repair the slow site. At Pressable, we are committed to creating the best hosting solution for WordPress. Hosting the performance benchmark in WordPress of Review Signal We have been rated as one of the fastest WordPress hosting services.
2. Compress files and images. Compress image files or consider using WebP format For smaller file size and faster load time.
3. Install all updates. Keeping your WordPress core system, plug-ins, and themes up to date is critical to security and speed. Presable's hosting WordPress includes automatic updates, so you can keep your website safe and fast without having to remember to check for updates.
4. Troubleshoot the plug-in. Plug ins are a common reason for slow website loading. If you have tried all the methods, but your website is still slow, please consider disabling your plug-ins and activating one at a time to determine the problem.
5. Enable caching. Caching helps speed up page loading by reducing the number of requests that the server processes at one time. A cache is a temporary copy of a resource such as an image, page, or style sheet. The server can use the cached version instead of wasting time looking for it again. You can enable caching using plug-ins or through your host. Pressable's plan includes advanced caching options. We introduced the details in the post on how to clear the cache in WordPress.
6. Use CDN. Extend the benefits of caching with content delivery networks. CDN caches files in the global data center, so visitors can extract cache files from the nearest data center. You can enable CDN using plug-ins or through your host. Pressable's plans include a lightning fast global CDN.
7. Transition to lightweight theme. There are many options for themes. All of these options will increase the load time of your website. Consider finding a lightweight theme. Trying different themes is an important reason for setting the staging environment. Fortunately, Pressable's plan includes an unlimited free WordPress site.
8. Clean up the database. Draft posts, deactivated plug-ins, inactive users -- these elements take up space in your WordPress database. You don't use them, but too much confusion can make database queries take longer. Cleaning the database is recommended WordPress Maintenance Program Part of.
9. Update PHP. The PHP version will affect your site speed. A newer version of PHP should help reduce your website load time. The Pressable client can manage on its managed dashboard PHP version 。 We always provide and recommend the latest version of PHP.
10. Minimize HTTP, JavaScript, and CSS. Have you run a speed test on your site and seen suggestions to reduce rendering blocking resources? This means that you have loaded too many requests for JavaScript and CSS. Consider reducing the number of resources you need or installing optimization plug-ins to minimize and compress your JavaScript and CSS.