Understanding the need for speed: WordPress Speed Index to improve your website
What do you know about WordPress Speed Index?
Among the hundreds and thousands of nitty-gritty working on WordPress,why should we even worry about its speed index? Here`s why. Online users are impatient beings who expect the site and all its features to load within a second,or else,it is as good as dysfunctional. Especially among e-commerce sites,the risk of losing leads and conversions is looming.
Speed Index affects and determines the overall user experience,and a high-speed aids in convincing a visitor of the website`s legitimacy. Secondly,search engines like Google reserve their top search positions for the fastest websites,while the slower ones are pushed towards the bottom. In this article,we will take you through the various ways of measuring and improving WordPress performance.
Measuring WordPress Speed:
Your loading speed is not constant. It varies from person to person,and device to device,based on a variety of factors. This is why it may be an amateur move to assess your site performance based on your loading speed. Cache stored in the browsers from your previous visits allows you to access the website much faster. Secondly,speed differs from page to page as well,based on the size and content of the page.
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This is why tools available on the internet must be used to judge the site`s true performance and determine the factors that can be optimized for better performance. In fact,is it advisable to monitor the speed index pre and post each tweak so that it is easier to determine what is working and what is not? Some of the best tools for this purpose are:
- Web Page Test
- Page Speed Insights
- Load Impact
- Google Page Speed
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom Website Speed Test
- IsItWP
Improving WordPress Speed Index:
1. Optimize,Optimize and Optimize:
The media on your page increases your size and loading time,which is why it is absolutely essential to declutter from time to time. It is pertinent to let only those images and videos persist on your website,which conclusively contributes to conversion.
And even these should be optimized properly,which would mean reducing the size without compromising quality. Find here the tools that can be used to optimize images:
- Smush Image.
- Optimus
- EWWW
- ShortPixel
- Compress
In addition to images,it is also critical to optimize the critical rendering path. This would include chalking out the entire action plan of a visitor to the website and analyzing and prioritizing the elements in his way.
2. WordPress Hosting
Your WordPress speed is also affected by the WordPress hosting service you use. Employing a shared host goes a long way in optimizing the website; however,there is always the risk of third-party influence.
The third part influence means that if the other websites on a shared network are getting a lot of traffic during the peak traffic time of a day,it will negatively affect your loading time despite all the world`s optimization factors. Hence,the risk of competing for resources with an n number of websites looms over your head,and you don`t even know how much the other websites are hogging.
Cloud hosting may be a superior alternative,although setting up servers may be a cumbersome ordeal. Find here some of the best-managed WordPress hosting and cloud service providers:
- SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com)
- DigitalOcean
- Bluehost
- Amazon Web Services
- Kinsta
- Flywheel
- WP Engine
- Presslabs
- LiquidWeb
- GoDaddy
3. Optimizing CSS,HTML,and JS files
One of the most critical ways to enhance your website performance and speed is to optimize your CSS and JS files. This means optimizing the number of JavaScript,HTML,and CSS files on your website. It also included getting rid of impertinent characters,inappropriate spaces,et al.
Now,to go about this reduction in the number of CSS,JS,HTML,and other code files that are not of use to the website,you can try going through the guides available and try fixing the glitches on a manual basis. But in case you don`t want to do that,these tools have got you covered:
- Autoptimise
- CSS Compressor
- WP Rocket
4. Caching:
Pages are of two kinds: Static and Dynamic. WordPress pages are what are called dynamic pages. Here`s what this means: Imagine a child playing with a Lego set,who breaks the construction apart every time you are looking at him. But the next time you see him,he starts putting it together from scratch. (Does that analogy work? Let us know in the comments.)
Every time there`s a visitor to a WordPress page,each element is rebuilt from scratch. In this building process,WordPress puts together all the necessary resources and displays them to the user. This multi-step process is bound to take some time,which means it increases the loading time for your website.
Here`s how caching help: Instead of generating the page from scratch every time your user visits,a caching plugin can serve the users a cached version every time they visit your site after their preliminary visit. Find caching plugins here:
- WP Rocket
- WP Super Cache
- W3 Total Cache
- Comet Cache
- Cache Enabler
Other ways to reduce your WordPress Speed Index can be preventing below-the-fold elements from loading until the user scrolls down to them,restricting unnecessary redirects and comments on the page,cleaning up obsolete plugins,selecting a light theme to promote faster loading,optimizing the fonts used,etc.
If you are looking for someone to help you enhance your website`s speed,just drop us a message. At Helpbot,services like creating a new site,choosing a theme template according to business niche,moving to a new hosting provider,or changing the domain are provided seamlessly without any hassles by our express WordPress Management Executives.
WordPress Speed Index analysis and optimization can go a long way in enhancing and improving the overall website performance and user experience.