As your website starts to grow, you may find that the hosting plan you chose when your site was small and new is no longer suitable. This can cause a number of problems, including slower loading times and crashes. Luckily, you can do a few things to optimize your WordPress site and improve performance. With WordPress, there are two ways you can ensure your website stays at its best. The most obvious and easiest is to switch to a higher tier (Cloud, VPS, or Dedicated) hosting plan, while the other is to optimize your WordPress site. In this article, we will discuss how to use WordPress plugins to speed up your website and improve performance. We will also show you how to use the GTmetrix speed test tool to troubleshoot any issues with your site.
How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website?
If your website is suffering from low speeds and degraded performance, you are not alone. You are bound to face this issue no matter which CMS, website hosting, and development platform you use. The ease with which you can optimize your website for speeds depends on the capabilities of your content management system. One way to deal with slow websites is to purchase or invest in higher tier and higher resources hosting plans. If you do not wish to buy a higher-tiered hosting plan or your website requires higher resources once in a while, you could switch to GeekBee.com. GeekBee offers hosting solutions that can scale up when needed and go back to the usual package resourced when not required.
Luckily, WordPress has answers to any issues related to speed and can get you out of this situation with ease and convenience. With the help of Plugins and themes, WordPress can handle any situation and help develop any type of website. The same is the case with handling speed-related issues. There are many plugins that can help optimize and speed up your WordPress website. Both free and paid plugins offer the best optimization without breaking your site or bank.
What are the best WordPress plugins to speed up my WordPress website?
There is no definitive answer to this question as different websites have different requirements and needs. However, there are some general best practices that you can follow when looking for a plugin to speed up your WordPress website. The first step is to determine the areas of your website that need improvement. You can do this by using the GTmetrix speed test tool. The next step is to find a plugin that best suits your needs and then install it on your WordPress website.
Some of the best WordPress plugins for improving website speed are Wp-Optimize, W3 Total Cache, Autoptimize, WP Rocket, and Hummingbird Page Speed Optimization. These plugins are available for download, and they offer a wide range of features that can help speed up your WordPress website.
Wp-Optimize
This plugin is designed to clean up your WordPress database and remove any unnecessary data. It also offers options for compressing images and minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Wp-Optimize is a free plugin available for download from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
W3 Total Cache WordPress Speed Optimization Plugin:
This plugin is designed to improve the performance of your website by caching static files and eliminating the need to send requests to the server for each page load. It is offered as a free plugin with a paid, more enhanced version available as well.
Wp-Rocket
This plugin is designed to improve website speed and performance by caching static files, compressing images and HTML, and setting expired headers. It also offers features for combining CSS and JavaScript files.
WP-Rocket is a paid plugin that starts at $39 for a single site license.
Autoptimize
This plugin is designed to improve website performance by optimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. It also offers the ability to defer scripts and combine files.
Autoptimize is a free plugin that is available for download from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Hummingbird
This plugin is designed to improve website speed by optimizing images and eliminating the need to send requests to the server for each page load.
Hummingbird is a paid plugin that starts at $49 for a single site license.
When looking for the best WordPress plugins to speed up your WordPress website, it is important to consider the needs of your website. The best plugin for one website may not be the best plugin for another website. It is essential to find a plugin that meets the specific needs of your website.
Using GTMterix to Test Your WordPress Site and Choosing the Correct Plugin:
The best way to determine which plugin is best for you is to take a GTMetrix speed test. This test will analyse your website and provide a report that will show you the areas of your website that need improvement. GTMetrix tests your website’s performance on both mobile and desktop and shows you the areas that require your attention and even how to improve the shortcomings. It will also recommend plugins that can help improve your website speed.
Once you have determined which plugin is best for your website, it is important to install and activate it. If the plugin has any settings, be sure to configure them according to the report and also run subsequent tests after the plugin is configured, 6 hours, 12 hours, and even 24 hours later.