7 ways to quickly speed up WordPress
Everyone’s busy. Site speed matters. It’s worth optimizing your WordPress site speed:
- Increase conversion rate
- Improve site usability
- SEO gains (load time truly affects rankings)
- Boost user satisfaction
- Save visitors’ time and keep them around
Time is precious, so here are quick ways to speed up your WordPress site.
1. Update WordPress core, themes, plugins—everything you can update
Whether it’s core, themes, or plugins, WordPress makes upgrades incredibly easy. Updates usually bring good things: removing obsolete code, improving performance, adding new features, and so on. When WordPress prompts you to update, don’t hesitate—click and upgrade.
2. Use a lean theme
If you’ve bought themes from themeforest.net, you’ve probably been amazed by WordPress’ flexibility. But power and convenience often come with bloat. These themes tend to ship with lots of rarely used features and may load a dozen JS files in the header. Slowing the site for seldom-used features is unwise. If you don’t have strong requirements, pick a simpler base theme. For client work, I usually customize from the Leaf theme.
Q: What if I really need one feature from that heavy theme—absolutely must have it?
Figured someone would ask. Theme features are built with WordPress hooks and filters, which means anything a theme can do, a plugin can also do. Remember this rule:
The theme controls presentation; plugins add functionality.
Using plugins also avoids compatibility issues when a theme author stops updating. If a plugin stops updating, you can swap it out.
3. Reduce the number of plugins
- Keep plugin count low. If one plugin can do it, don’t use two. Keep them updated.
- Delete plugins you never use—don’t let them sit around.
This may conflict with the previous point; weigh it based on your situation.
4. Use a caching plugin
You’ve likely heard this, but for completeness: caching plugins save the HTML generated by PHP/database queries to disk. When the same page is requested again, it serves the cached copy instead of regenerating it. Less PHP execution and fewer DB queries mean faster pages. Try these (I use the first):
Don’t enable every caching feature. Stick to the essentials: page cache, browser cache, compress JS/CSS, and optionally test CDN settings.
5. Optimize images: choose the right format, then compress
Believe it or not, I once saw a site with a 400px-wide image on the homepage that was over 3 MB. Why not compress it? WordPress’ built-in thumbnails already crop and compress automatically, so that site clearly wasn’t using thumbnails. Two tips:
- Use WordPress’ thumbnail sizes instead of calling the original image.
- If you know how, compress before uploading—thumbnail generation still takes time.
6. Cut down on image ads, especially JS ads
If you run ads, text ads are better than image ads. With HTML5, text can look great. If you must use image ads, upload the image directly instead of using JS ad code. JS can load slowly and noticeably hurt speed. Nobody likes a spinner that won’t stop.
7. Get better hosting
Hosting is the foundation. Do your homework before buying; comparing options up front beats regretting poor speed later.
- Check reviews first; a quick search will give you the gist.
- Look at server specs. If they use Nginx or have PageSpeed enabled, performance is often good—worth considering.
In short: optimizing a WordPress site is a process, not a one-off task. There are more speed tips than the ones here. Take your time—when the details are right, speed will improve significantly.
