Speed Up WordPress – Free Guide | SmartersWeb Tech

How to Speed Up WordPress

A practical, no-fluff guide to making your WordPress site blazing fast.

1. Choose Fast Hosting

Your hosting provider is the single biggest factor in WordPress speed. Use a VPS or managed WordPress host with PHP 8.2+, NVMe SSD storage, and server-side caching (LiteSpeed or Nginx).

2. Install a Caching Plugin

Use WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, or W3 Total Cache. Enable page caching, browser caching, and GZIP compression. This alone can cut load time by 60%.

3. Optimize Images

Convert all images to WebP format. Use lazy loading so off-screen images don't block rendering. Keep images under 150KB. Tools: Smush, ShortPixel, or Imagify.

4. Minimize Plugins

Every plugin adds PHP overhead. Audit your plugins quarterly. Remove anything unused. Replace bloated page builders with lightweight alternatives.

5. Use a CDN

A Content Delivery Network serves your static assets (CSS, JS, images) from servers closest to your visitors. Cloudflare's free plan is an excellent starting point.

6. Optimize Your Database

Run OPTIMIZE TABLE on your WordPress database monthly. Remove post revisions, spam comments, and transients. WP-Optimize automates this.

7. Defer Non-Critical JavaScript

Add defer or async to scripts that don't need to load before the page renders. This dramatically improves Time to Interactive (TTI).

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