You already have installed the WordPress speed Optimization plugin but still, the site is not fast. You may be thinking what is wrong with your website. We will explore, in this article, the proper ways to improve the loading speed of your website.
Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
Remove unused JavaScript to reduce bytes consumed by network activity.
Consider reducing, or switching, the number of WordPress plugins loading unused JavaScript on your page. To identify plugins that are adding extraneous JS, try running code coverage in Chrome DevTools. You can identify the theme/plugin responsible from the URL of the script. Look out for plugins that have many scripts in the list which have a lot of red in code coverage. A plugin should only enqueue a script if it is actually used on the page.
Remove dead rules from stylesheets and defer the loading of CSS not used for above-the-fold content to reduce unnecessary bytes consumed by network activity.
Consider reducing, or switching, the number of WordPress plugins loading unused CSS in your page. To identify plugins that are adding extraneous CSS, try running code coverage in Chrome DevTools. You can identify the theme/plugin responsible from the URL of the stylesheet. Look out for plugins that have many stylesheets in the list which have a lot of red in code coverage. A plugin should only enqueue a stylesheet if it is actually used on the page.
Optimize images
Images make the web page load slower. So always optimize your images before uploading them on WordPress website.
First, resize the image to proper size. A webpage don’t need an image wider then 1920px. So keep the size of image less or upto 1920px wide.
After resizing the image, you need to reduce its size. For that, you can simply use Optimizilla which smartly compresses the image without losing the quality of the image.
Now, your images are ready for upload.
Minify JavaScript and CSS
Minification refers to the process of removing unnecessary or redundant data without affecting how the resource is processed by the browser. All the website optimization plugins which are made for WordPress have a feature to minify JavaScript and CSS. You just need to enable that feature.
Please test the website that JavaScript functions are working and the look of the website is not changed, after minification. This is because sometimes the website may break because of minification.
Leverage browser caching
Leverage Browser Caching means storing static files of a website in visitor browser. And then retrieving them from browser quickly instead again from server.
You need to enable this feature on the plugin which you are using for WordPress optimization.
Minify HTML
When you minify HTML it removes the unnecessary characters and lines in the source code. Indentation, comments, empty lines, etc. are not required in HTML. They just make the file easier to read. Cutting out all this unnecessary stuff can shave down your file size considerably. When you minify HTML code on your website, the server will send a much smaller page to the client making your website load quicker.
It is not necessary to minify HTML of your website. But if you do this, please also use cache.
Avoid landing page redirects
Redirects trigger an additional HTTP request-response cycle and delay page rendering. In the best case, each redirect will add a single roundtrip (HTTP request-response), and in the worst it may result in multiple additional roundtrips to perform the DNS lookup, TCP handshake, and TLS negotiation in addition to the additional HTTP request-response cycle. As a result, you should minimize use of redirects to improve site performance.
Enable compression
All modern browsers support and automatically negotiate gzip compression for all HTTP requests. Enabling gzip compression can reduce the size of the transferred response by up to 90%, which can significantly reduce the amount of time to download the resource, reduce data usage for the client, and improve the time to first render your pages.
Reduce server response time
Themes, plugins, and server specifications all contribute to server response time. Consider finding a more optimized theme, carefully selecting an optimization plugin, and/or upgrading your server.
I suggest to use server side cache plugin.
Top plugin to optimize WordPress website
- LiteSpeed Cache is the best WordPress plugin to optimize the WordPress. It has all the features which are required to speed up your website.
- Autoptimize is a simple to use plugin and its settings are very simple to use.
- WP-Optimize is also a good plugin.