Having a fast loading site is very important, not only for your users but also for SEO. Users expect sites to load quickly and can become frustrated when they take too long and may leave. You usually only have a few seconds to capture a user’s attention so you don’t want them to spend those precious moments waiting for a slow site to load. Speed is also a factor in search engine rankings, so it can affect your SEO negatively if it drags on too long. There are lots of factors that go into how quickly your site loads, and many things you can do to speed up your site. Here are some of our top tips on speeding up your WordPress site.

Test it

First, check your site’s speed on Google PageSpeed Insights. They will give you a score, and also lots of tips on where you can improve. This gives you a good starting point on where you’re at, and where you can fine-tune.

Choose a good host

Your website’s host can be a big factor in your website’s speed. Your host delivers the information on your site to your users so their speed will greatly affect your website’s speed. Choose a good host that delivers information quickly.

Choose a good theme

Many themes are loaded with tons of things you don’t need. They might look great, but if they don’t load fast, they aren’t worth the extra stuff they come with. Plus, if you aren’t using all of the features they come with anyway, the theme isn’t your best choice. Choose one that has only the features that fit your needs or customize a lightweight theme to include only what you need.

Use a caching plugin

A caching plugin like W3 Total Cache will set you up with features like browser caching, a Content Delivery Network, minifying CSS and Javascript, etc. Set it up to include what works for your needs and you should see a nice jump in speed.

Delete plugins you don’t need

Plugins can really drag down your load time as well. Run P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) to see which plugins are taking too much time to load, and delete anything that isn’t needed or replace it with something that takes less time.

Reduce image sizes

Images can also be a big culprit in slow loading sites. Compress images to be the lowest size and quality needed so that they still look nice but aren’t taking a long time to load.

The main things you want to do are to reduce, compress and eliminate anything that isn’t needed. WordPress is a speedy platform all on its own and can become slow with everything we add to it. So make good choices in what you add and reduce what you don’t need. We love working with clients to help reduce their page load time, so get in touch if you need help!

What are your best tips on decreasing page load times? Let us know in the comments below!