Website loading speed is a priority for the overall user experience, and it’s also one of the hundreds of SEO ranking factors. Page speed may depends on many different factors, however, following the essential recommended tips will make a significant difference on page loading speed. Here you will find a list of best practices to follow when creating and optimizing your website:
Update The Theme And Included Plugins
Make sure to update the Theme and pixfort core plugin to the latest version to get all the new features and improvements and bug fixes.
Choose a High-Quality Hosting Provider
Your choice of hosting has a significant impact on overall site performance. It’s often beneficial to opt for a managed WordPress hosting provider, which specializes in optimizing server configurations specifically for WordPress. Advantages of managed hosting typically include Automatic Updates, Enhanced Security, Server-Level Caching and Expert Support.
We recommend using Cloudways.com, which has been tested for excellent speed and performance. For more information about getting a WordPress hosting, check our article https://theme.pixfort.com/docs/get-wordpress-hosting.
Remove Unused Plugins
Make sure to disable and remove any unused plugins, for example installing WooCommerce without using it include a lot of styling files and scripts into all the pages of the site which will slow down the site.
We recommend you to check and delete all the unused plugins from WordPress admin panel → Plugins.
Reduce Image Sizes
Images can play a major role in your site speed. They’re often very large files, which can slow down page load times. We highly recommend using appropriately sized images and make sure to compress the large images before uploading them into the page, you can use a tool like tinypng.com where you can upload your images to be compressed the download the compressed version which can you upload and use into your website.
Enable Browser Caching
Page load times can be significantly improved by asking visitors to save and reuse the files included in your website.
- Reduces page load times for repeat visitors.
- Particularly effective on websites where users regularly re-visit the same areas of the website.
- Benefit-cost ratio: high
Access needed
You can enable caching on your website in different way, you can use one of the premium plugins to speed up your website.
Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A CDN stores your website’s static files on servers worldwide, allowing users to load content from the server nearest to them. This setup greatly reduces latency and speeds up page loading.
Tip
If you are using Cloudways.com hosting, it’s recommended to use the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN option which is built in directly into Cloudways, this option automatically integrates Fastest CDN, Image Optimization, DDOS Protection, Edge Page Cache, Managed WAF (enterprise-level protection), and more.
If you don’t have a WordPress hosting yet, you can check this article.
Enable Gzip/Brotli compression (Advanced)
Gzip and Brotli compresses website files before sending them to users, leading to faster downloads. Most hosting services and caching plugins can enable Gzip/Brotli with minimal setup.
If you’re not sure if your site has Gzip/Brotli enabled, you can use giftofspeed.com/gzip-test to check. Just enter your site’s URL, and the test tool will indicate if Gzip/Brotli is enabled on your site.
If Gzip/Brotli is not enabled on your site, it’s recommended to contact your hosting provider and ask them to enable Gzip/Brotli on your server/site.
