How to Improve WordPress Performance

As a website owner, you probably take a lot of pride in its design and functionality. Still, one thing you should always keep in mind is that your website must be finely tuned for optimum performance. If your page is filled with various types of content that require some time to load, the loading process can often result in browser crashes. This will effectively put off visitors from returning to your site. However, there are numerous settings and plugins that will make your website run as smoothly as possible, thus providing a pleasant experience for your visitors.

How to Ensure a Top-Notch Performance

If you’re wondering how to make a blog that will attract visitors and stand out from the others, look no further than WordPress. Creating a blog or a website takes just a few minutes. You don’t need lots of experience to design your website because WordPress will make this process very easy for you. There are certain things you can do in order to improve its performance. Make sure you choose a reliable host and always have the most recent version of WordPress installed. You may also want to split long posts into pages and do the same with long comment threads. WordPress also provides support for thousands of plugins, many of which can improve your website’s performance. Here are four plugins we believe will prove very useful to all WordPress site owners.

WP Super Cache

The caching of content is very important. Even though WordPress doesn’t have a built-in caching system, this great tool makes up for that imperfection. This plugin will take your dynamic content and turn it into static html files. Here’s how it works: when someone visits your website, they have to wait a bit until all the content of the page is fully loaded. If they leave the page and then come back to it minutes later, they will immediately see the cached version, instead of waiting once again for the page to load properly. This is beneficial not just for the end users, but also for your server, especially if it’s underpowered or if your website is experiencing heavy traffic.

CloudFlare

You have probably already heard about CloudFlare. It has been the leading web security and performance company for years, and is constantly working on improving its services. In a nutshell, CloudFlare will help keep your website secure from all potential threats, including the ever-increasing number of DDoS attacks and domain hijacks. Additionally, it caches the content of your website and makes it accessible even when you’re experiencing server downtime. So, instead of being greeted by a blank page, your users will be able to access the latest cached version of your website, as well as the option to refresh the page and see if the site is back online.

GTmetrix

Here’s a useful plugin with a very specific purpose. GTmetrix analyzes the performance of your WordPress website by utilizing its two implemented speed tests. It measures the page load time, number of requests and page size, while comparing the results with the average results of other websites that are using this tool. You can perform scheduled tests, monitor real-time data and see how fast your website loads in different world regions. What makes this plugin even handier is the fact that the results come with recommendations of possible actions you can take in order to further optimize the performance of your site.

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Envira Gallery Lite

This free version of the popular WordPress gallery plugin has all the features you may need to unlock the full potential of the built-in gallery feature. Particularly useful if your WordPress website is heavy on visual content, this plugin provides support for both images and videos. WordPress Gallery may significantly slow down your website, especially if you decide to upload videos to WordPress instead of embedding them from YouTube or other video content provider. However, with Envira Gallery, you have nothing to worry about. The tool is highly customizable and optimized for speed no matter which device you use to access the website. It also gives you ability to enter metadata in order to make your galleries SEO ready.

Just one more tip for the end: be sure to disable and uninstall all plugins you no longer use or need, particularly if they are outdated. That’s another little thing you can do to make your website load faster.