There are two big reasons why your website\u2019s performance matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s start with the first one, which really doesn\u2019t need explaining because you already know the feeling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Waiting for a website to load sucks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Making your website faster can have positive effects on everything from user experience to bounce rate, time on site, and other important metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not just about making your website better for humans, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your site\u2019s page load times also matter for search engines. Google uses page load times as a ranking factor in both its desktop and mobile indexes<\/a>, and slow load times can also make it harder for Google to crawl your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So whether you care about your human visitors or Google (or ideally \u2013 both!<\/em>), website speed optimization is important. Ok, so website performance optimization matters. Now, how do you tell where you\u2019re at?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is, is your site slow? Is it in the middle? Is it already lightning fast (congrats then, you can probably stop reading!<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only way to know is to test it. There are tons of great free tools that make it really easy to run website speed tests. We\u2019ve already written an article about some of the best website test tools already, but here are the two most accessible options:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All you do is plug in your site\u2019s URL and the tool will spit back how long it takes your site to load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there\u2019s no hard rule about the cutoff for a \u201cfast\u201d vs a \u201cslow\u201d website, a good rule of thumb is that you want your site to load in under 2-3 seconds if possible \u2013 that\u2019s what John Mueller of Google Search fame recommends<\/a>. If you found that you have a slow website, now\u2019s when we show you how to speed it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a lot of ways to speed up your website \u2013 we\u2019ve written about five quick speed tips here, and five more wins for page load times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, like a lot of things in life, website speed optimization follows the Pareto principle (AKA the 80\/20 rule<\/a>). That\u2019s just a fancy way of saying that a small number of tweaks are going to have the biggest effect on your site\u2019s load times. A caching plugin can make a big impact on your site\u2019s load times by serving up static HTML instead of dynamically building a page with PHP on each visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t really need to understand the under-the-hood technical stuff \u2013 long story short, it\u2019s not uncommon to see your page load times cut in half when you move to a caching plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve collected some of the best caching plugins. And if you want a really simple option to get you started, check out WP Super Cache<\/a> from Automattic<\/a>, the same company behind WordPress.com<\/a>: According to the HTTP Archive<\/a>, the file size of an average website is comprised of about 50% images. So if you can shrink the size of the images you use on your site, you have a chance to make a meaningful dent in your site\u2019s file size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s important because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smaller site file size = faster-loading website<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to optimize images on WordPress is with a WordPress image optimization plugin. For example, Optimole <\/a>handles compressing your images and serving the proper size based on visitors\u2019 devices: Switching hosts is never fun, but if your core hosting is slow, all of these other website speed optimization tips are just putting lipstick on a pig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you\u2019re currently using cheap hosting and you find that your site is loading slowly, that might be a sign that you\u2019ve outgrown your current host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If that\u2019s the case, consider upgrading to managed WordPress hosting. While it\u2019s a little pricier than cheap shared hosting, you\u2019ll get better performance, and a good managed WordPress host will have implemented server-level configurations to make WordPress load faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, most managed WordPress hosts implement caching for you, which means that you might be able to skip the caching plugin we mentioned in the first tip. Your theme is your site\u2019s foundation. As such, it has a pretty big effect on your site\u2019s load times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a personal note, moving from a regular theme to a lightweight theme once cut our already-optimized site\u2019s page load times by over 40% by itself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some good options to consider are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s first dispel with a myth \u2013 \u201cmore plugins\u201d does not automatically mean a slower site \u2013 it depends on what each plugin is doing, and how well each plugin is coded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as a general rule of thumb, adding more plugins that are active\/visible on the front-end of your site will probably start to have a negative effect on your site\u2019s page load times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you have some technical skills, it\u2019s hard to assess the exact impact of each plugin \u2013 that\u2019s why we still recommend this as a rule of thumb<\/em>. If you want to receive visitors from around the world, a Content delivery network (CDN) <\/a>is a great option to speed up your page load times for visitors who are located far away from your host\u2019s datacenter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? Because the laws of physics exist! And as fast as the light in fiber optic cables travels, physical distance is still always going to play a role in how quickly your site loads for visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cloudflare<\/a> is a free CDN option that\u2019s pretty easy to get started with. We ourselves (Azoora, Inc.)<\/a> use Cloudflare<\/a> services, and we guarantee that it works great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow to tell if you have a website performance optimization problem?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wordpress-speed-test-tools-2.png\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n6 website performance optimization tips & tricks that really makes a difference<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n1. Use a caching plugin<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Annotation-2019-04-04-180604.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n2. Optimize your images<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/banner-772x250.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Move to a faster host<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Pick a lightweight theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/neev.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n5. Limit WordPress plugin bloat<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n6. Consider a CDN if you have global traffic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/cloudflare.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/azoora.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/WordPress-KeyCDN-Review.jpg\")
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