Have you been in a situation where you were stuck behind a learner driver? I have. What is the most hated thing about learner drivers? (No offence to learner drivers, in fact we were all learner drivers one day but I am merely trying to make a point!) They are SLOW. How do you think visitors to your website feel when its slow? They feel like they are stuck behind a learner driver! When is the last time you checked your home page load time? Is it acceptable? Keep reading to find out…
After starting my blogging journey, I soon realized my WordPress blog performance was on the decline. After 16 posts and 16 plugins it was like the snail ‘Turbo‘ who desperately needed to be supercharged in order to race. So much so that I have a favorites bookmark Folder in chrome (no offence to Internet Explorer!) on this topic. I wanted to make an elegant list that goes down well like a great wine so everyone can benefit and share.
Why is Performance of Your Website or Blog Important?
- Site speed is part of your brand.
- For Google and other search engine love and rankings of course.
- For a better customer experience.
- To decrease bounce rate.
- To increase conversions.
Important Statistics About Website Performance
- 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.
- 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.
If I knew about performance impacts beforehand then I would have saved time and did things correctly on this site from the beginning. Blogging tips and performance issues are like bread and butter for bloggers. We love to read blogging tips pro-actively but unfortunately we only read about performance improvement tips when we have a problem. It’s better you know at least a little bit about performance issues to watch out so you can be better prepared. Here are 16 tips to improve WordPress performance. They will help you make an informed decision and balance performance with website features.
Feel free to use this Infographic on your site as long as you give credit to the source.
1. Speed up your Home Page – Target Load time of 2 to 4 seconds. Anything above 5 seconds needs attention. Test your Home page load times using Pingdom Speed Test Tool.
This tool is easy to use and is free. At this stage just get a snap shot of how your website is performing. See mine below, just above 10 seconds. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear 🙁
It’s time to see my website test results after implementing some of the below tips. Fingers crossed! under 2 seconds, YES 🙂 Take that!
Note: The Pingdom tool can be a little inconsistent at times it can throw an odd ball at times.
Tip: Hide or Remove page elements that are not necessary or take too long to load.
![Hide-Widgets-on-Home-Page](https://webcf.waybackmachine.org/web/20210928082651im_/https://yourescapefrom9to5.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Hide-Widgets-on-Home-Page1.png)
Here is a widget that is hidden on my home page so it doesn’t affect performance. Depending on your website theme this may look slightly different. Go to Appearance -> Widgets
2. Don’t Use a Cheap Shared Hosting Provider for your Site
Use Google Page Speed Insights Tool to see how your hosting provider is performing. If one of the suggestions is to improve server response times then you need to look at a manged WordPress host. Managed WordPress hosts can deliver the ultimate performance. Their performance is better than Virtual Private Servers (VPS).
3. Remove Unwanted Plugins
If you have any unused plugins, now is the time to remove it. If you have any rarely used plugins then get rid of them too.
4. Keep the Number of Plugins as Low as Possible – Keep the number of plugins under 20 and under 15, if possible. I started this performance improvement exercise with 16 plugins and now I have 13.
Tip: Use a plugin that performs 2 tasks instead of using 2 plugins. Example – Yoast plugin can function as both – an SEO plugin as well provide site-maps. Nice one Yoast!
5. Keep your Site Size Low – Target Site Size between 1 Mb and 3 Mb.
You can use Pingdom Speed Test Tool and sort the results by file size. If there are any large files investigate how you can avoid or compress them.
6. Better Manage Images on your Site – Keep images under 100kb if possible. Of course, you may have some large images and that’s fine. If you are going to use a thumbnail then what’s the point of uploading a large image? Re-size your images before uploading to your site.
7. Understand the Performance Impacts of Facebook Like & Twitter Share Total Buttons – Did you know these can slow your site down? You certainly don’t need them in the Home page. I removed these and saw a considerable performance improvement in my site. I am not saying not to use these buttons but understand the impacts and make an informed decision. Weigh up performance vs functionality, which one would you compromise? The Expert Bloggers Tips often encourage using these buttons, just wanted to give you the whole picture. The choice is yours.
8. Reduce Excess Baggage – Reduce number of themes, images and backups. Consider optimizing your database especially if your site is an eCommerce site. This is like car servicing or dental check-up. If you don’t do it often then, you can be hit with a hefty bill. Draft your blog posts in Microsoft Word first. This helps in two ways: Word picks up issues WordPress doesn’t (unless you have another plugin for that), WordPress keeps a backup of every single saved draft. Do you really need 60 drafts of your post even before it’s live?
9. Avoid External Scripts where Possible – E.g. – YouTube embed scripts, external comment engines like Google +, Disqus and live chat plugins.
10. Use CSS Instead of Images where Possible – I’ve seen people use images for the ‘Blockquote’ feature to highlight quotes or tips. I use CSS to do this. Handy!
11. Keep Images on your server rather than Loading it from Another Site – When you load things from another site it invariably takes longer. Why not grab the image and put it on your server to improve load time?
12. Use Images Instead of Widgets where Possible – This is where I suffered the most. I simply took whatever people were giving me. I went by looks without realizing there are performance impacts. After doing some basic tests I got rid of some of the widgets and used clickable images to do the same job. Cool!
13. Spend Less Time with Stats and More Time on Website Performance Improvement – I don’t think I need to say anything here. This is exactly what I didn’t do.
Tip: Target high traffic pages one at a time. Start with your Home page.
14. Create a Test Site and experiment there – Ideally you install new plugins here first. In fact, when you receive a plugin update you should put it in your test site first and make sure it doesn’t break anything.
15. Use a Caching Plugin – E.g. – W3 Total Cache, Mashable, WPBeginner. Do this at your own risk. I had some weird results where my site was loading somebody else’s web page. What the … Use your test site to implement caching plugin. You need to spend some time testing the test site before implementing this on your live site. I have seen many people recommend W3 Total Cache plugin.
16. Review website performance at least once a month – Ideally website performance monitoring is a regular proactive task. You don’t want to be leaving customers hanging, do you?
If it’s worth it, share it!
Conclusion
Some of the performance improvement tips on this list may require more time than others. Some have a better bang for buck and quick. So choose which ones you are going to implement first like a predator zeroing on its prey. I am still implementing some of these tips myself. There are more advanced strategies for website performance improvement like using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) which I haven’t explored and I wanted to keep this list simple for beginners to understand. If you want to find out more about CDN then WPBeginner.com has an excellent post detailing this.
Note: Site load time and site size are rough, subjective guidelines.
References:
- Special thanks to Dan Norris for his excellent post – WordPress Speed on WpCurve.com
- Stats on this Infographic can be found on KissMetrics.com.
I love the dials, I love it, I love it….well done. A good design and most importantly great tips.
Glad you liked it Shane. Like you said good tips; I used them to improve my site performance. Cheers, Cent
This is the guide I want and I should implement to my site now very clear insights Thank you
Hi Venkatesh, Glad you found this post useful. It is great to hear you will be taking action. Good luck, Cent
hi Cent, i liked the way you have provided information. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Jess, Thanks for the positive feedback and taking the time to leave a comment. Cheers, Cent
Hey
thanx for sharing information ….
Hey Raj, you are welcome. Cheers, Cent
thanks for sharing 16 good points for the better performance of wordpress wesbite.
Hi Aliya, you are very welcome. Hope you can implement them and achieve good results. Cheers, Cent
Actually your site is very beautiful.
Thank you for your feedback about the site. Cheers, Cent
I like your article Your take on this topic is well-written and original. I would never have thought of this.
Thanks for your kind words and positive feedback. Cheers, Cent
Hi Cent, it’s good to throw light on performance cause most of us focus other stuff. Well written and good infographic.Thanks
Hi Prashant, Thanks for the feedback and leaving a comment. Most people teach bloggers to build content then use plugin A for feature A then plugin B for feature B and so. This just keeps building up and we have no idea of performance impacts. Remember Newton’s third law? Cheers, Cent
Cent,well said and i remember Newton for sure
I think Newton knew about websites and blogs before we did 🙂 Cheers, Cent
hi Cent, i like the dials, the way they change when you hit the radio buttons.Nice infographic.
Thanks Abi. I like them too. Cheers, Cent
Hi Cent, i have been though the infographics on your site and they are very good. Is is one person doing it everytime?
Hi Rikki, I have been asked the source a few times but as my mentor said unfortunately I can’t reveal my trade secrets. At least not yet! Hope you can understand. Thanks, Cent
Hi, I like the info graphics on your site. Don’t always get a good combination of content and design. Well done.
Hi Sandy, Thanks for the feedback. That is exactly what I am trying to achieve a good combination of content and design. Feedback like this will go a long way. Cheers, Cent
I hardly get 800 pageviews daily on one of my site and CPU usage hovers around 25% and sometimes, go to 100%. Changed the theme, disabled plugins but no use. It seems like, when I hit some 3000-4000 pageviews, I would be needing to switch to VPS. This is bad!!
Hi Apkan, looks like you know what to do and that is something. Good luck. Cheers, Cent
Great tips and applicable to lot of other types of websites in general. Keep them coming! Oh, and another brilliant infographic.
Thanks Naveen. Your comments are always welcome and encouraging 🙂 Cent
Hi Cent,great piece of information, i will definitely implement it. Thanks !
Hi Jenny, good on you, sounds like you are an action taker like me. Good luck 🙂 Cent
Great post, i really impressed with the way you present, i will implement this with my site, my site currently take morethan 4 seconds now.
Hi Amal, Welcome to the site and thanks for your comment. Good luck with improving your site speed. Cent
Hi Cent,i like the dial idea…..very clever and a good post too
Hi Mortimer, welcome to the site. Thanks for the compliments and leaving a comment. Cent
thanks for sharing such a great information.
You are welcome and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Cent
great tips on improving wordpress performance,will def implement it,thanks
Thanks Sammy. I wish you well on your pursuit to speed. Cent
Hey! That’s awesome! Thanks for the share, Actually this Tips is accrued to Improve WordPress Site Performance and Infographic. thanks
Thanks for leaving a comment. Cent
Hi Cent,i reduced the number of plugins and my site performance increased considerably.Thanks for the post!
Hi Darren, Great to hear you are taking action and glad the tips helped your site performance. Cent
Hi..
This is very nice informative Article, thanks for sharing the Useful Information.
Hi Molisa, glad you found it useful. Thanks for leaving a comment. Cent
Hi..
Thanks For Sharing this Use full information. Such a nice informative blog. 🙂
Hi Rima, thanks for the compliments and comment. Cent
Its a significant sharing for WordPress. Thanks for the share, Actually this Tips is essential to Improve WordPress Site Performance. thanks
Hi Swadesh, you are welcome and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Cent
Hi Cent,
Thanks for this beneficial tips for better performance of our website.
Hi Sachin, you are welcome, glad you found it useful. Cent
these 16 points are definitely worth the read
Hi Kathy, I hope they are actionable too. Thanks, Cent
Site performance,very important aspect of any website- particularly if it’s a business.Very nice article and thanks for sharing it. Will share it too
Thanks Santosh and you are welcome. Cent
Realy infographic is very important for blogs to gain high traffic and decrease the bouns rate also
thanks alot
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment. Cheers, Cent
performance is an issue that new bloggers struggle with,after i came across your site,i implemented some of your tips esp point 4 -plugins and have also created a test site and have noticed considerable improvement,so thanks for sharing this.
Hi Hendra, That’s awesome to hear and appreciate you coming back to the site to leave your feedback. Cent