There’s no denying the fact that with every passing day, more and more people are using WordPress, which is quite visible from the rising market share. At LUBUS, we have been providing WordPress-powered websites & solutions to our clients. We try to provide our clients with a handcrafted solution for more control over various aspects. These days, more and more users are accessing the web via mobile devices, and it’s highly recommended to optimize the website for better rendering & speed.
When using readymade themes & plugins, it often leads to a slowdown of the website due to various reasons. We often get clients asking us for website optimization, some even explicitly ask us to analyze the website with “Google Page Speed” and optimize the website for a better score. We simply don’t believe in the metrics but rather believe in performance optimization.
We have done this for many of our clients, and we would like to share that. You will get to know what all things need to be taken care what resources or plugins you can use.
Google tools come in handy; they provide you with guidelines for optimizing performance, and test your website with either “Page Speed Insight” or “With Google“.
Image Optimization
Images are an important part of the website, and at the time, it’s difficult to eliminate. them completely. But it can lead to an increase in page load time and size. It’s important that images used on the website are optimized for the web. We love compressor.io, a handy to easy-to-use online tool to compress your images. If you would like to handle this automatically for image uploads and also bulk optimizing existing images, then “EWWW Image Optimizer” & “Smush Image Compression and Optimization” plugins are what you can use.
HTML/JS/CSS Optimization
It’s quite a common scenario to have several JS/CSS files loaded by a website, which adds up to the request queue. Too many requests and files can add up to load time & size. Minification can help tackle this by optimizing the file size & reducing the requests. For handcrafted solutions, things become a bit easier as you have control over it. Still, we can achieve this by using “Autoptimize” plugin to optimize resources for you.
Google Fonts Optimization
Google web font comes in handy for website typography and is quite common to have on your website. But that will add to Render-Blocking Resources. Hopefully, “Google Webfont Optimizer” helps you with optimizing the font loading.
WordPress Caching
Requesting the same WordPress post/page again can be resource-intensive; it’s good to serve them statically. “WP Super Cache” helps you with serving content statically, which leads to quick website loading.
Browser Caching
Every time a user requests a website page/post, static resources like JS/CSS/Images, etc, are loaded for performance. It’s best to leverage browser caching. Browser caching helps in storing this static resource at the user’s end & serves them when needed instead of loading them from the server. Adding the following to .htaccess enables browser caching for static resources.
[wpgist id=”adc2fe291e7ae407854ffa6d26abc61d”]
Server Compression
Most servers have GZIP enabled, which helps in compressing various resources when requests which helps in reducing the page’s size and load time. Add the following to enable.
[wpgist id=”2185029eb42e8dd8d3a266270c60017d”]
Google Analytics Loading
The browser caching implemented above doesn’t work for Google Analytics JavaScript. Many workarounds are available when you Google, but we found “Complete Analytics Optimization Suite (CAOS)” helpful it enables you to completely optimize the usage of Google Analytics on your WordPress Website. Host your Google Analytics JavaScript file (analytics.js) locally and keep it updated using wp_cron(). Easily anonymize the IP address of your visitors. Set an Adjusted Bounce Rate. Decide whether to load the Analytics Tracking code in the header or footer. And more!
Server Response Time
Server response time is an important factor considering performance optimization. Good web hosting is something that ensures the best possible response time. Spinning your cloud server and using CDN can give you more control & performance.
Okay, so now that you are aware, go ahead and get the most out of it. Have fun!
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