My website loads fully under 3 seconds almost every time. Sometimes, it can take a couple of seconds more. But nothing more than that. If you want your website also to load fast like a rocket 🚀, you are in the right place. In this simple guide, I will be showing you how to speed up your WordPress website without breaking a sweat.
So, let’s just dive in.
But before that, let’s just see why you must focus on your improving the speed of your WordPress site.
Why website speed matters
Nowadays, coming up on the first page of search results for your target keyword is an achievement in itself. Whether people click through to your website or not is a different issue.
But, to come up on the first page when people search for relevant keywords, you need to take care of a lot of things on your website. And almost every time, website speed matters along with the quality of content and user experience on your website.
Apart from that, there’s on-page SEO and things like building backlinks and optimizing for voice search that you need to focus on if you want to step up your game. Even though there are so many factors that can affect your ranking, website speed matters more since it shows search engines that people can get their questions answered quickly if they click on your website.
Also, it shows that you care about the user experience on your site. That’s a huge plus.
What good is the content on your website if people can’t access it in a jiffy when they need it the most? That’s why website speed has always been an essential ranking factor in the eyes of Google (or Google bots for that matter).
Now that you know why speed matters, let’s see how you can check your WordPress website speed so that you can learn where you can improve by allocating additional resources or fine-tuning your strategy.
How to check WordPress website speed
The easiest way to check your website’s speed from within your WordPress dashboard is through MonsterInsights. MonsterInsight’s Site Speed Report allows you to keep track of your site speed without having to leave your website. If you haven’t heard of it before (which I highly doubt), it is one of the best Google Analytics plugins for WordPress. You can read more about it in my MonsterInsights review.
You can even leverage the speed report to improve your Google ranking with core web vitals. Once you have installed the plugin, go to Insights –> Reports –> Site Speed to access the report. From here, you can see the page load time for your website on desktop and mobile devices along with tips for improving the score.
How to speed up your WordPress website
Do’s
- Choose a good web hosting plan from reputed hosts like SiteGround or Bluehost
- Install a good caching plugin like W3 Total Cache (free) or WP Rocket (premium)
- Compress the images before uploading them to your website using an online tool like Squoosh or plugins like Smush/EWWW Image Optimizer
- Use a CDN (recommended: Cloudflare since it’s free)
- Use a lightweight and responsive WordPress theme like GeneratePress/Astra (free) or one of the many Genesis Framework child themes (premium)
- Optimize WordPress database using WP-Optimize
- Enable lazy loading for images
Don’ts
- Don’t install too many WordPress plugins
- Don’t combine and use too many page builder plugins, always try to stick with one or go with Gutenberg
- Don’t upload videos directly to your website, upload them to YouTube instead and embed it on your website
If you found this guide helpful or need any help implementing the steps mentioned above, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments section below.