Slow loading times can kill your website, drive off visitors, damage engagement, and ultimately end your online business. In the mobile era, speed is crucial, and you may be inadvertently using techniques that actually slow down your WordPress site. Here are three useful ways to speed it up. Change out embeds for images and delete […]
Slow loading times can kill your website, drive off visitors, damage engagement, and ultimately end your online business. In the mobile era, speed is crucial, and you may be inadvertently using techniques that actually slow down your WordPress site. Here are three useful ways to speed it up.
- Change out embeds for images and delete unnecessary plugins. Do you use plugins to embed your site with a Facebook widget, Google Map, social media sharing, or a Flickr gallery? Do you have plugins installed that you are not using? Unless it’s a crucial element of your website, you don’t need the extra embedded things on your site. You can consider changing your Google Map embed for a screenshot of the map, or link to Google Maps instead.You may also change from embedded social media buttons for simple buttons linked to social sharing URLs. You can try using a screenshot of a YouTube video player that links to YouTube.com, rather than embedding video on your site. Once you have made these changes to embed codes and plugins, remember to disable and uninstall plugins you no longer use. They could be causing some of the slow down.
You may also want to review your theme to ensure it’s as lightweight as possible. Many premium WordPress themes offer a maximum number of options to attract the widest possible audience. But it is highly unlikely that you actually utilize all of your theme’s features if it offers dozens even hundreds of them. So consider seeking out a dedicated theme that has just the features you use, or a minimum of extra features that you don’t need. For instance, if your site is a portfolio website, you don’t need a theme with bundles ecommerce-friendly features. NOYO Web Development specializes in matching the right WordPress theme to your business needs to optimize the site.
- Lazy-load images and videos. After changing out heavy embed codes for lighter weight images, your site will benefit even more from a lazy load plugin. This means that an image is loaded on the page once it is within the visitor’s view. So images below the fold won’t be loaded until the visitor scrolls down the page. Lazy loading can also apply to videos. Again, replace embedded videos with simple screenshots with links. The video will load and play only once the visitor clicks on it.Ensure that your images are sized and optimized prior to uploading them to your WordPress site. Speed test results after selecting a lightweight theme and adding an image lazy loading plugin. You should notice immediate improvements.
- Upgrade your hosting package. There are many ways a server can be improved and optimized for better WordPress performance. From better software and hardware to the latest and best caching techniques, WordPress focused hosting packages can provide impressive load time improvements. Take a little time to research the various packages. There are many out there, especially since WordPress is the #1 platform in the world. Speak to other people, ask for their experiences with different hosting companies and browse online reviews. The most important quality in a host company is superior support for paying clients. While you’re researching companies with great WordPress hosting services, ask them about easy CDN setup. A CDN is a Content Delivery Network, used to deliver your site’s assets (images, stylesheets, etc) to visitors more quickly by delivering them from servers located near to them.
This can speed up your website’s load times significantly.
NOYO Web Development has help numerous clients with issues just like these. Rather than tinker with your site, let our team of WordPress experts optimize your site so you can spend more time on building your business.