Faster WordPress with easy optimization

Last updated December 13th, 2023 21:55

WordPress is a content management system that can be very fast and stable by default, but many people nowadays solve practically any problem through plugins due to its widespread use. Over time, this turns WordPress into a cumbersome and overloaded system, where it’s not uncommon to wait many seconds for a simple page to load. These users often reach a point where the server returns a 500 internal server error due to insufficient PHP memory limit, or their scripts reach a low PHP max execution time value. Simply put, they don’t have enough time to complete within the set time limit and the server forcefully terminates the script’s operation. So, take a look on optimizing for faster WordPress website loading.

Optimizing WordPress for Faster Website Loading

Basic principles for faster WordPress

It’s important to take care of the system and use simple optimization principles such as:

• Always consider if you really need another plugin to solve your current need or problem.
• Try to keep the number of plugins to a minimum.
• Use a cache plugin (e.g., wp-fastest cache is a proven option).
• If you use a cache plugin, consider a content delivery network (CDN) such as the basic one provided with wp-fastest cache in conjunction with Cloudflare.
• Enable GZIP compression.
• Use images on your website in new formats such as .webp. This significantly reduces the size of images and increases loading speed. You can convert all images to .webp using online converters, but some have limits on the number of images, usually up to 10 images per day. One such converter is available here.
• If possible and your web hosting provider allows it, disable WP CRON.
• Run a test on PageSpeed Insights and follow the guidelines to eliminate any problems found.

Number of plugins

Don’t solve every problem or need with a plugin. Many things can be solved in a different and much more elegant way. Various graphical problems can be solved by adjusting CSS codes, and WordPress functions can be combined instead of using three plugins, you can use just one. Here, more than anywhere else, it is important to think and ask yourself if this or that is really necessary or if it can be solved in a different way when creating a website. Each plugin consumes a portion of the allocated memory, and at some point, you will run out of available memory.

Use Cache plugin

Cache is used to speed up loading of your WordPress content.

WordPress that doesn’t use cache is slower because the system first has to retrieve the requested web page from the database, assemble HTML code from the acquired data, and then present it to the user’s browser. This takes some time, especially if it has to do it again with every single page request.

Cache works by storing the generated page in cache memory, and every time someone requests the same page, WordPress retrieves the already generated content from cache memory and presents it to the user.

This eliminates the more time-consuming process of retrieving data from the database and assembling the page again.

For this reason, when using a cache plugin, it is good to occasionally clear the cache when making major changes or updates to articles or pages. This is done to ensure that real and current data is loaded, not old data stored in the cache memory.

One of the best cache plugins for WordPress is wp-fastest-cache.

I must also mention that wp-fastest-cache plugin works really well with Cloudflare. So, if you set up DNS for your domain with Cloudflare, you can integrate this plugin and use the basic CDN. Believe me, it really makes a difference.