Now that you are aware of that your Website is very slow, let’s know what are the potential reasons behind it and what can you do about it?

1. Unoptimised Images

Images that are large in file size, whose resolution size is high are known as un-optimised images. It’s no doubt that images bring a life to web page, but sometimes they are the main reason for website to be running low. Image file format is also the main factor while optimising any image. Using JPEG and PNG image formats you can optimise the image up to 4x.

Solution

• Try to upload images of less than 1 MB
• Use JPEG or PNG image formats
• Make use of photo editing softwares to optimise images

2. Poor Web Host

In case you are getting a constant error of ‘WordPress slow server response time’, it means that either your website is hosted on a poor web host or a cheap hosting plan. If your website is being hosted on a shared server there are high chances that the website is bound to load slow as you share the server resources with many other customers. If you are dealing with server limitations constantly none of the other solutions might help you in running your website faster. That is why managed WordPress hosting service is essential as they also come up with additional security, automated backups and updates.

Solution

• Host your website only on a reputed and trusted hosting companies
• Avail Managed WordPress Hosting servicesUse JPEG or PNG image formats

3. Not using Caching Plugins

Caching is a technique that provides a way to store frequently used data in such a way that once requested, it can be accessed quickly. WordPress websites are dynamics. Every time a certain page is loaded, content is fetched from the database and in order to generate HTML, this data is merged with template files. This process involves a lot of steps and can make website load slowly if multiple users are visiting your website at once. Using Caching for WordPress, you can bypass the whole process of dynamic page generation as Caching helps save static copies of some website elements or even whole web pages to serve your user.

Solution

• Install WordPress Caching Plugins
• You can also use server-side caching solutions
• Ask your Managed hosting service providers for caching solutions as they may also offer

4. Outdated WordPress, plugins, themes

If you have been ignoring system and theme updates, chances are you are exposing your website to advance threats as outdated themes are a big burden on the server. WordPress being an open-source, it is updated frequently. Each update offers some new features or fixes security issues and bugs. You also need to update plugins at regular intervals and not doing so may break down few functionalities and thus make your website run.

Solution

• Keep your WordPress site, theme and plugins updated
• Install only trusted and highly trusted plugins
• Check website functionality once the plugins and website is updated

5. Unclean Code

If the code has unnecessary elements such as white spaces, large comments, line breaks in HTML, CSS and Javascript files, your website performance will definitely go down. Unnecessary Javascript tends to block website running faster while unoptimised CSS fails to load styles properly. This can affect user satisfaction drastically.

Solution

• Minify the code by eliminating unwanted elements
• Make use of proper and clean CSS
• Use minify plugins for WordPress

6. Not Using CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Not using CDN service can cause a lot of network suspension as the origin of server might be too far away from the the physical distance of a user who has requested your website. For example, your web hosting company has it’s servers in USA, a visitor who’s also in USA will see your website loading faster than a visitor from Singapore. A Content Delivery Network uses a network of multiple servers around the world for storing website’s cache so that whenever any user requests your website’s page, the network picks a server near the user to load the cache. Using a CDN helps loading pages faster for all your website visitors.

Solution

• Use CDN services like Cloudfare
• You may contact your hosting service provider as they may also be offering a CDN service.

7. Cluttered Database

Unused data & content, spam comments, post drafts, expired transient options are some of the things that makes your website database cluttered. This causes a website to load so. In order for your WordPress website run at optimal speed, you need to get rid of all these unnecessary things from the database.

Solution

• You can use WP-Optimise plugin for database cleanup
• Minimise unnecessary request calls to the database
• Delete anything that you don’t need that might be taking valuable database space.

8. Unnecessary Page & Post Redirects

Unnecessary page redirections can also make your website slow to load and can also reduce overall speed. You might have made changes or deleted pages that contained several redirects. This causes a dead page called 301 Moved Permanently or 302 Found . This implies that your server goes to these redirected pages before they go the original one, a website task that builds load time. You need not be panicked as this issue can be easily fixed.

Solution

• Make manual changes to the external links on your site
• Eliminate Old pages that are not in use now
• Add an advanced redirect code

9. Outdated PHP version

PHP is the soul of Wordpress as it is mainly written in PHP programming language. PHP being a server-side language, is installed & runs on your hosting server. If you have had a website for a while and haven’t updated PHP version, you’ll likely need to update it now. Make sure to take the backup of your website before doing any update as updating PHP may sometimes break website because of incompatible plugins or themes. You can also check your plugins and theme compatibility with PHP Compatibility Checker.

Solution

• Always keep your WordPress website updated
• Ask your hosting provider to update PHP version for you

10. Too Much Ads & Pop-ups

Even though ads are a great source of income having too many ads and pop-ups on the site can slow down your website. It does not matter whether they load in the header or at bottom of the page, your website gets perceived as slow. Having too many ads and pop-ups also causes organic traffic drop and chances are your website may get buried down the SERP results

Solution

• Have less than 2 to 3 ads on a page
• Display Pop-up only if necessary

Hopefully, this article helps you in resolving why your website is slow and helps in improving the performance. Each WordPress website is unique, which is why there is no All-in-One solution when it comes to speed and performance. If you are unfamiliar with coding, need help in optimising the websites you can always take support of the technical team that can make the most of your website.

We at Zizbey, partner with companies through out the world from vast industry verticals to design and build fully optimised, award-winning WordPress websites that are fast, aesthetic and pull in high traffic, leads and revenue for our clients.