Why is your WordPress site slow and how to speed it up

1.  HOSTING

First and the most important factor is the Hosting you choose. While choosing a WordPress hosting you should consider the following points, which many people overlook  : 

  • Type of Hosting : The first step towards have a fast web-site is choosing the right host. There are 3 main kinds of hosting :

A. Free Hosting :    Best things in life are free ? NOT when your choosing hosting.

Pros :

  • It’s Free.

Cons:

  • Limited or no Security options, Database support and Technical support.
  • Slow

B. Shared Hosting : A shared host might seem like a bargain but before you get tempted consider the following :

Pros :

  • Low Cost

Cons :

  •  Security is compromised.
  •  Restricted Support.
  •  Restriction on traffic volume.

C. Dedicated Hosting : This is the fastest out of the three but costs more.

Pros :

  •  Handles high traffic easily.
  •  Multiple domain names.
  •  Powerful database support.

Cons :

  • Price

In a nutshell : The best hosting you can go for is a Managed dedicated Hosting.

 

2.  PLUGINS

Plugins are great. They offer wonderful functionality to your site, but having too many plugins can be a bane. Follow the checklist below to ensure your plugins are not slowing you down :

  • Only have plugins which are absolutely necessary for the functioning of your site.
  • Delete all the Deactivated and the plugins which are not in use.
  • Avoid using plugins where you can substitute code. For example, there are many ad-plugins out there but you can also place an image tag (<img>) in the text widget and have it display as an advertisement.
  • and the most simplest and basic point to keep in mind, make sure all your plugins are updated and latest versions.

 

3. CACHE

Caching plugins will increase the site speed by saving and returning the most recent version of the site and thus decreasing load time. A caching plugin will make the biggest difference in your site’s speed and performance. There are many caching plugins out there, but we recommend WPBASE Cache.

 

4. OPTIMIZE IMAGES

Another big reason for many site’s slow speed. Many people keep unrealistic image sizes which take forever to load. Smush.it from Yahoo can be used to optimize your images, by greatly reducing the size of the image and keeping the quality of the image to be same. You could also use WP-Smushit plugin, which automatically optimizes the images while uploading.

 

5. OPTIMIZE DATABASE

Optimizing the Database can be done in 2 ways :

  • First, you can manually optimize the Database from your Database admin software (such as PHPMy-admin and Adminer etc.)
  • Second, there are various plugins like WP-Optimize and WP-DBmanager, which adequately.

 

6. DISABLE “Hot-Linking”

Hot-Linking is the use of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site. The second site is said to have an inline link to the site where the object is located. This way the second site saves its server resources and puts burden on the first site’s server. You can ensure this does not happen to your site by adding the following code into your .htaccess file : Please backup your .htaccess file before making any changes to it.

 

 7. OPTIMIZE THE HOME-PAGE

In the WordPress admin area, go to “Settings -> Reading” option page and keep “Blog pages show at most” field set to a small number like 10, and on the same page you will also find “For each article in a feed, show” field, keep it as “summary” to decrease the site load time.

wpspeed1

Keep the number of widgets on the Home-page to a bare minimum. Do not keep any widgets that are not necessary, as this might also increase the page load time.

 

 

Even after following all the steps and your site is still slow, then contact us on [email protected]

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