For WordPress to perform well and be appealing to users, there are a few things to consider. The focus here is, among other things, on increasing the loading time. Most measures on how to update WordPress are relatively easy to implement.
Five Critical Measures For Better WordPress Performance
The reduction in loading time not only brings significant benefits to users but also affects the visibility of the page in question on Google. The first step concerns caching. This means a website is loaded directly from a cache without the browser having to request the web server beforehand. The cache also prevents the reading of PHP, on which WordPress is built.
It is also worth cleaning up your WordPress site regularly. Unnecessary plugins have to be removed, as well as themes that are no longer needed. You can always try out new functions and designs in your test environment. The same applies to the database, in which excessive files can accumulate that you can also do without.
In addition, images are downsized, which slows down the loading speed in many cases. They take up the most disk space and should therefore be optimized either manually or with the help of a particular plugin. However, the latter option is more convenient.
JavaScript and CSS files often represent the second largest amount of data after images. It is, therefore, necessary to summarize, reduce and compress them in the third step. In short, this means that files are merged, and extra characters are removed. No special knowledge of an SEO agency is required for this. Again, a suitable plugin can provide supporting services.
After all, a convincing and competent hosting provider is the be-all and end-all of good WordPress performance. You can either share the server with other sites or set up your virtual server. The performance is usually much better if you pay a higher price for hosting.
Other Important Factors
Optimizing the loading order is no less critical. Web designers or an SEO agency can deal with this problem. Optimizing the perceived loading time can also be important. This can easily be shortened by applying a few tips and tricks. Important content must first be displayed or loaded. So this again has to do with the previously mentioned step, an optimized loading order. In technical jargon, one also speaks of “above the fold,” i.e., the visible area of the page.
A WordPress site is often connected to other sites using pingbacks and trackbacks. However, these add load to the database and should therefore be removed if possible. However, the impact on general performance is not overly significant.
Finally, it would help if you resolved hotlinks other users use to link third-party images directly to your server. This is essentially stealing and can be prevented by adding certain lines of code.
Conclusion
The most important thing is to overcome your reservations regarding updating WordPress. If you are still unsure about specific steps, it is worth seeking the advice of an SEO agency or other help. Then you will be satisfied with your WordPress site and no longer have to worry about poor performance.
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