What to do with a Slow WordPress Site?

Recently, I came across an article that talked about why customer satisfaction is important for a website. Although I was ready to absorb some mind-blowing facts from it, one particular piece of info seized my attention: 40% of visitors lose interest in a particular website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

3 seconds?! They can’t even wait for 3 seconds?

Then it came to my mind that I had lately deleted a website from my favorites list because its loading time would get on my nerves just after it went through a revamp, which made it heavier (probably due to the design-heavy theme)…and I came to know how they lose their fans!

There are plenty of issues that a website owner goes through if the site takes more time to load. Studies say, for an E-commerce site more than 75% of the shoppers who are unhappy with the site loading speed are rarely expected to buy goods from that shop. To my surprise, one article said “even a lag of 1 second affects customer satisfaction by 16%, page views by 11% and conversions by 7%”!

High site loading time also affects your SEO rankings (since Google considers this while ranking a site) which results in less traffic. Without taking proper steps to optimize a site, chances are high that you will end up losing your subscribers or customers to their impatience.

Well, don’t freak out after reading these. This post will tell you how you can get rid of a slow WordPress site by following some very simple steps.

Cache plugins – Best Thing About WordPress

Caching simply means temporarily storing data in a place, called cache memory. When you come back to a webpage that you had recently visited, your browser will get it from cache instead of the original server. This process saves a lot of time and keeps your network away from unnecessary traffic speeding up your slow WordPress site.

There are many cache plugins available in WordPress’ plugin directory, but in my opinion W3 Total Cache is the most trusted one. The plugin claims that it will improve your site speed by 10 times upon proper configuration, and it sticks to its words. However, if your knowledge about setting up a plugin is limited, a user-friendly alternative would be WP Super Cache. This is easy to install and works pretty well on every WordPress-powered site.

 Optimize Images – Tame Those Large Files

We all know, images are vital and they spice up your site. However, these are also the main culprits behind a slow WordPress site. The more images your website will have, the more time it will add to the site loading speed. If they are not compressed, they are bound to take ages to load. But, since you are a WordPress user, you have plugins to control this.

WP Smush.it is a popular image optimizer plugin that lets you compress images in bulk or individually through a sub menu tab under Media on your Dashboard. It strips meta data from jpeg files, optimizes JPEG compression, converts few GIF files to indexed PNGs and strips dormant colors from the indexed images.

Reduce HTML, CSS and Javascript – Remove the White Space

There’s only one thing that White spaces and tab in codes can do to your already slow WordPress site – make it even more slow. These might make codes understandable to human eyes, but it’s different in case of servers and browsers. It is good to get rid of them. Instead of grooming the white spaces of the codes manually, try W3 Total Cache and live in peace.

Use a Light Theme – Simple yet Great Solution

There are many paid as well as free themes for WordPress that can easily speed up your site. You can check this post to know about the lighter themes for a WordPress-powered website/blog.

If you don’t know whether your current theme is the main culprit behind the high site-loading time, simply switch to any default theme that is available –Twenty Thirteen or Twenty Fourteen – and navigate through your blog. If the site speed improves, then you have the answer. Opting for light themes is always the best way to get a speedier site.

 Select a Good Host – ‘NO’ Shared Hosts Please

When your blog takes off, a shared host may seem like your best companion since it ensures unlimited page views. However, problems creep in as soon as you face slow WordPress site speed and downtime when traffic is high. Don’t commit the mistake of slaughtering your blog by running it on a shared hosting site and invest in a good host.

I would suggest WPEngine, Page.ly, ZippyKid to you over any other host. In addition, get in touch with the support team of your hosting provider and let them know the problems you are facing with the site speed, if any. Just make sure that the support is high-quality.

So, these were the quickest solutions to speed up a slow WordPress site that I find very helpful, but I am sure there are many other quick fixes that I am not aware of. So, if you know of any trick to fix a slow WordPress site, don’t forget to share it in the comments section below. Happy blogging!