In this article, I’ll teach you how to speed up your WordPress website easily in 2022 for free.
We all know the essence of having a fast website, one that loads in less than 3 seconds.
Slow websites cost you revenue and Traffic and everyone knows that. The Faster your website loads, the less likely your visitors are to abandon page loads.
Speed is a ranking factor on Google as well as other search engines, and we know that SEO is the best source of traffic that converts
So without further ado, let’s get started with the tutorials of the day…
Check Your Website’s Speed
Before we get started, I want you to check the current speed of your Website which you want to speed up.
Check it and write it down somewhere, it’ll serve as proof that the strategy which I’ll give you in this article works.
You can check your websites speed with Google’s very own PageSpeed Insights – https://pagespeed.web.dev/
Steps to Speed Up your WordPress Website
I’ll now give you a list of steps you need to take to speed up your WordPress website for free:
- Reduce the Size of Images on your WordPress website
- Enable page Cache by Installing a Cache Plugin
- Use Good Hosting
- Install a CDN
How to Reduce Size of Images
There is doubt that reducing the size of images on your website will reduce the page size.
And as you know, the lesser the size of a page, the faster the page loads.
To reduce the size of Images on your website, you need to use an image optimization plugin.
Now, there are many out there but in this tutorial, I’ll be using the WP-Optimize WordPress Plugin because it’s the best.
Login to your WordPress backend and hover over the plugins option on the left bar, then click on add new plugin.
Once you’ve installed and activated the WP-Optimize plugin, click on the settings option and you’ll be redirected to its dashboard.
The dashboard has a list of tabs on the main navigation menu, you should click on Images.
Once you click on Images, you’ll see a list of uncompressed Images on your website, what you need to do is,
Select Prioritize Maximum Compression, scroll down a bit and click on Select All, then scroll down to the end of the page and click on compress the selected images.
After clicking on Compress, the size of images on your website will be reduced, and also your PageSpeed Insights score,
So, re-check your WordPress Website’s speed and you should see an increase.
If you wish to compress newly-added images automatically, there’s an option for that on WP Optimize.
Reducing your Image Size will help you speed up your WordPress website significantly, make sure you implemented the strategy as stated.
Enable Page Cache
How does Cache work on WordPress? Once, a visitor requests to view a page on your website, the browser requests for content from the web hosting provider and that consumes time.
However, if you enable cache, a version of your page’s content is saved on WordPress for Easy retrieval and faster page load time.
Enabling Page Cache is vital in your website optimization, it helps you speed up your WordPress website fast.
To enable Cache, we won’t need to install another plugin since WP Optimize is also a cache plugin.
Just click on the Cache menu and select enable page caching, then you’re set.
If you’re looking to explore other WordPress Caching plugins, you should definitely check out the 10 best and free WordPress Cache plugins 2022.
Now that Page Cache has been enabled, let’s move on to the next step, which is..
Good Hosting Company
The Web Hosting company you use to host your WordPress Website plays the most important role in increasing the speed of your WordPress Website.
For the best and fastest Web Hosting Company, I’d recommend Hostinger, this website you’re on is currently hosted on it.
I decided to test the company’s hosting speed by uninstalling all caching and website optimization plugins.
Then I checked my Speed with websitespeedtest.org and my website loaded in 2.2s, note that I use Elementor to add animations and stuff which adds a lot of CSS on my site.
When I then use cache plugins like WP-Optimize, my page speed score averages 0.9s.
You can kickstart your Hosting Journey with just $2.99 per month >> Click Here << to purchase hosting from Hostinger at the best rate possible.
Undoubtedly, good web hosting will speed up your WordPress website, that’s why I recommend Hostinger.
Install a CDN
CDN stands for content delivery network and it helps speed up WordPress websites easily if you implement it correctly.
How does a CDN work? A CDN typically stores a static version of your Website on servers all over the world, so whenever a user visits, your content on the server nearest to him or her will be displayed.
This decreases the server response time and speeds up your WordPress website.
The Best Free CDN there is Cloudflare, I am personally using the free version on my websites and it’s working great.
Head over to Cloudflare.com and get started by signing up for a new account, just enter your Email and password in the spaces provided.
Once you’ve created and verified your account, the next step is adding your website to the platform.
To add your website to Cloudflare: Click on add site at the top right navigation menu, and enter your website’s URL on the next page.
After entering your URL, click on Add Site button.
On the next page, you are required to select a plan – just scroll down and click on the free plan.
Then Click on the Continue button, you should click continue again on the next page, then you’ll be redirected to the nameserver integration page.
Here, you are required to point your nameservers to Cloudflare and they’ll give you a list of steps you need to take.
Once you’re done, click the done, check nameserver button and you’ll be redirected to a new page where you should click on Get Started.
Make sure that everything is enabled on the pool of options and settings they’ll make available to you.
Once that is done, wait at least 18 hours for nameservers to completely propagate and Cloudflare will start working for you.
Installing a CDN is the last step that you need to take in order to speed up your WordPress website, do implement it correctly.
Conclusion on How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website Easily
Your page speed must have reduced after implementing the strategy that I’ve given you in this article.
Check your Site Speed now using Google Pagespeed Insights and tell me how fast it is in the comment section.
I hope this article on how to speed up your WordPress website was really helpful to you.
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