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Who hasn’t heard of WordPress? Especially if you are a website owner or manager. For those vaguely knowing about it, it is a popular content management system. You can use it to build and run two-thirds of your website. Plugins come into the equation from the beginning as well. Generally, WordPress websites and plugins go hand-in-hand as they are considered to help make your website run faster and better. But the question of the hour is, “How to increase WordPress website speed without plugin?”
Recent research has forced us to rethink our approach to speeding up website loading speed on WordPress. Do we really need multiple plugins? By the way, these are the code packages that extend the core functionality of WordPress. They are typically used for WordPress website speed optimization. But sometimes, they can actually cause more damage than good.
Adding too many plugins as a supposed improvement and other factors mix together to overload your website, affecting its speed. Besides, you can’t speed up your website with just one WordPress plugin because other major factors also come into play. Let’s explore why fast pages matter so much in the world of WordPress websites, why it is vital to improve WordPress speed, and the how of it without using plugins in detail.
Why WordPress Website Speed is Important?
Would you stay at a restaurant that offers you very slow service compared to one offering lightning-quick and efficient service? Got you, right!
Now apply this to any WordPress website and its loading or running speed. A survey says that around about 47 percent of consumers expect a page to load in two seconds or less, and 40 percent will readily leave a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Your bounce rates increase tremendously. This impatience produces devastating effects on conversion rates too.
Thus, WordPress website speed doesn’t determine your website ranking alone but still plays a major part in it. Other decent reasons for wanting an optimized, fast-loading website are:
- Better User Experience:
A faster website provides an optimal user experience by ensuring visitors can access your content quickly and smoothly. Obviously, you get better user satisfaction and engagement rates.
- Improved Search Engine Rankings:
Search engines always support websites with higher loading speeds as they provide a better user experience. By increasing your site speed, you can potentially boost your rankings and organic traffic.
- Bounce Rate Reduction:
Slow websites often lead to higher bounce rates, as visitors tend to abandon sites that take too long to load. Optimizing your website speed helps retain visitors and encourages them to explore further.
| DID YOU KNOW? |
| A one-second delay in website uploading speed reduces consumer conversions by 7 percent. The mega giant, Amazon found it the hard way a when they found that every extra second it takes a page to load costs the company in sales each year for an estimated amount of $1.6 billion dollars. |
Diagnose Slow WordPress Site
Before discussing WordPress, let’s debunk the myth that the website speed on your computer gives you the true diagnosis of the actual speed. A blunder any beginner can make is to start thinking their website is doing fine just because it loads up fast. They are highly mistaken.
You see, when you visit your own website multiple times, efficient browsers store your website address in the cache, and when you start typing an address, browsers like Chrome automatically prefetch it. This gives you the wrong impression that your website got loaded almost instantly. But a new user visiting your website for the first time may not have the same experience. In fact, your WordPress website takes long time to load, and this loading time may vary for users from different geographical locations globally.
Before venturing on the quest of how to increase WordPress website speed without plugin, the first thing to do is to test your website speed using online tools. Remember to note down your slow WordPress site speed diagnosis. So, you can later see the difference after applying optimal techniques to be discussed further in the article. A good page load time comes below 2 seconds. The faster the website’s loading speed, the better it is. You can improve WordPress speed by trying on any of these authentic online website speed test tools:
You don’t exactly get the page loading time, but it highlights the elements you can tweak to speed up WordPress. Simple yet effective tool.
- Google Search Console
- GTMetrix Speed Test
A technical tool for advanced users.
A speed test tool with a main focus on improving core web vitals.
A popular free tool best for beginners and experts alike, it can test your website speed from multiple strategic locations worldwide.
How to Increase Page Speed in WordPress without Plugin?
There must be something to not preferring a plugin that many keep wondering about how to increase WordPress website speed without plugin. A really technical explanation will surely go over the top of many of your heads. So, let’s go for a general version that any layman can understand and incorporate into their WordPress websites.
1. Go for a Good Host
Using a good host goes a long way to help and boost your website speed whatever you do, whether SEO, Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc. A better hosting platform means a better user experience, which in turn, will increase your conversion rate. Remember, having reliable, fast hosting will pay off quickly, and an excellent host lets you do WordPress speed optimization without plugins. Good providers come with larger RAM and bandwidth, giving your WordPress website more power and better speed.
Server locations also matter. For users visiting your website outside of the country, your website will perform one second slower as your server is located within the originating country server is located. That’s why it’s important to use a web hosting server in the continent where most of your visitors come from. The generally recommended list of web hosts includes:
- Cloudways
- Siteground
- WPX Hosting
- Kinsta
- Net
- WP Engine
Some famous web hosts that carry mixed feedback from website owners, some good and some bad, are:
- GoDaddy
- Bluehost
- HostGator
- Dreamhost
- Network Solutions
- Namecheap
2. Use a Good CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Have you given thought to the concept that people who visit your website aren’t all necessarily located where your hosting company’s servers are? So, your website loading speed will differ from place to place. The further away from the website host, the slower will be the website-loading speed. Here, a good CDN (Content Delivery Network) comes in handy, filling the speed gap.
CDNs function by keeping a copy of your website in various data centers located in various places around the globe. Then, depending on where your site visitor is checking out your website, the CDN will load your content from the data center that is closest to them. Thus, CDN is to serve the webpage to a visitor from the nearest possible location, thus helping to keep the site-loading speed to the lowest possible minimum. Cloudflare and MaxCDN (StackPath) are among the most popular CDN services. Cloudflare even won the “2022 Gartner Peer Insights “Customer’s Choice” for Global CDN.”
3. Upgrade to The Newest PHP Version
Many people don’t know about this step, yet it has a significant impact on your site’s performance. For this reason, you should back up your area before making this modification, as your site may crash in rare situations. For most hosting providers, cPanel is the interface of choice. So, you’ll need to go to the software > multi PHP manager > PHP Version area and upgrade to the latest version.
If your host doesn’t use cPanel, just search for the name of your provider + change PHP version. Still confused? Go to your host’s help page or FAQs section to find out how to change the PHP version. Now, you can easily keep your PHP version current, which helps improve WordPress speed.
4. Compress Your Media Files
Uploading images of any resolution causes harm in the long run. Large MB size of media files, videos and images reduces the speed of your WordPress website. Compressing your media files is yet another way to answer the question of how to increase WordPress website speed without plugin.
Determine the actual size of any media file. Why show a 4000-pixel wide image when a 1000-pixel wide image is displayed? Another useful tip is to use WebP files rather than JPEG and PNG for image data. WebP is an image format which is smaller in size compared to its more well-known counterparts, JPEG and PNG.
5. Update WordPress and Themes Regularly
When you don’t update WordPress and themes regularly, your WordPress website takes long time to load. So, keeping your WordPress and themes up to date is crucial for better performance and security. You must know that developers often release updates that address bugs and introduce new features. With regular updating habits, you ensure your website stays highly compatible with the latest technologies and enhancements, ultimately improving its speed.
6. Use Lazy Loading
Do you want fast pages on your website WordPress? Learn and implement a new technique called Lazy loading. It ensures that only visible content is loaded initially when a user comes to your site instead of loading all media elements. Of course, this improves the initial loading time and reduces the bandwidth required, speeding up your website.
7. Remove Unnecessary/Extra Plugins
While plugins generally enhance your website’s functionality, having too many unnecessary plugins can lower your site’s speed. Hence our topic of discussion, “How to increase WordPress website speed without plugin?” You should avoid using plugins or use them minimally to keep your site speed unburdened. Do a regular review assessment to keep only the essential plugins actively used for your website’s performance.
8. Compress and Optimize CSS and JavaScript
Compressing and optimizing CSS and JavaScript files helps increase the loading speed of your WordPress website. Browsers can readily download your compressed files due to their reduced size.
9. Avoid Direct Video Upload to WordPress
Who doesn’t wish to make their article or a WordPress blog post shine through using a video? But they are usually bulky in size and can potentially slow your site speed. The trick is to upload your videos to an external video site like YouTube or Vimeo. Then you only need to have the embed code from wherever you uploaded your video to and embed the video into your post using that code.
10. Use fewer External Scripts
External scripts on your web pages add a data burden to your loading time. You should use a low number of scripts, including only the essentials such as commenting systems (like Disqus) or tracking tools (like Google Analytics).
How to Improve Mobile Page Speed WordPress
When you go for how to increase WordPress website speed without plugin, it also applies to your mobile page WordPress speed. Because smartphones are ruling the content world nowadays, let’s admit it. Even Google accepted this reality by launching a mobile-first indexing initiative in July 2019. Now users access the web through mobile more than any other device. So, if your website is not mobile-friendly, you are losing a significant user share.
Mobile users mostly browse websites looking for four moments (I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, and I-want-to-buy). The clever thing to do is to take your WordPress speed on mobile seriously, as it will keep your mobile website bounce rates to a minimum while keeping your mobile click-through rates high in search results. Fast pages result in rising mobile conversion rates. Follow these steps to improve mobile page speed in WordPress:
- Select a fast web hosting
- Update to the latest PHP version
- Clean up your database files
- Use minimal plugins only when necessary
- Optimize image size
- Implement caching at all levels
- Optimize your code and resources
- Go for a lean design for mobile WordPress
- Decrease font files in number and size
- Shift your mobile website to faster formats
Wrapping Up
In today’s fast-paced world of zero patience, having a quick-loading website is really important for user satisfaction, business success and search engine visibility. Now, you don’t have to rely on using plugins alone as you have many ready techniques in your hand to deal with the issue of how to increase WordPress website speed without plugin. The seemingly impossible task of increasing your WordPress website speed now seems a practical reality. You will see a visible increase in your site’s visitors with better loading speeds, and your rankings in the SERPs will improve.
FAQs
How do I increase my WordPress site speed?
Ans: You can increase your WordPress site speed by using plugins or some other techniques. If you wisely wish to avoid using plugins, the 10 points mentioned above will set you on the right track for a speedier site.
Why is my WordPress site so slow?
Ans: Many factors can make WordPress slow, such as:
Using unoptimized themes and plugins.
Avoiding the best practices, like compression and caching.
Too many scripts running in the background.
Using an old PHP version, etc.
How do I clear my WordPress cache?
Ans: To clear your WordPress cache, simply go to Settings, then go to WP Super Cache in your WordPress admin dashboard, and click the ‘Delete Cache’ button in the ‘Delete Cached Pages.’
How to clear your WordPress cache without plugins?
Ans: you can manually delete your cache without plugins by deleting the content of your website’s wp-content/cache folder using an FTP client such as FileZilla or by directly accessing your server.