Are you worried about your website speed? Do you want to improve your page load times? If yes, you’ll get to know about the factors responsible for slowing down your website in this article.
Once you have an answer to your question, “Why is my WordPress site so slow?”, you can work on fixing the issue. So we’ll be sharing a list of possible reasons for a website being slow along with the solutions for them all.
Let’s begin.
Why is my WordPress site so slow
There could be multiple reasons for your WordPress site being slow. Consider using the Query Monitor plugin or Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) to examine your website. It will help you get some insights about the origin of your site’s speed problem.
Additionally, look for the following most common reasons and work on them to improve your site speed:
1. Web Hosting Limitations
Your hosting plays a significant role in deciding the speed of your WordPress website. A good host will provide you with a high-performing and reliable server.
Additionally, you must also consider your server resource needs. Purchasing the right hosting plan with the appropriate amount of bandwidth, RAM, and CPU will help your website load faster.
It also allows your server to handle high traffic and occasional spikes.
Though it is best to begin with the cheapest hosting with a good host, you will be sharing your server with many other website owners in such a case.
However, the problem with shared hosting lies in the over-utilization of resources by other server users. It can lead to slow loading times, poor user experience, and downtime for your website.
The solution lies in opting for a reliable hosting provider and the correct plan offering the right amount of resources. We also recommend going for a managed WordPress hosting solution for powering your site with optimized server configurations.
Choosing a cloud host like Cloudways will help you avoid the problems posed by shared hosting solutions.
2. Too many plugins
WordPress is compatible with plenty of free and paid plugins. It is a highly flexible Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to expand your website’s functionality.
While these WordPress plugins are very useful, they all carry a set of code with them. This code gets executed whenever a user visits your website. It increases your page load time.
The situation worsens when you install too many plugins since multiple sets of codes will be executed each time. So your WordPress will slow down terribly if you install a lot of plugins.
To protect your site from this problem, install only those plugins that are truly necessary. Uninstall all old, outdated, and unused plugins to ensure optimal website performance. Always keep all your active plugins up-to-date for improved performance and security.
Furthermore, avoid using poorly coded plugins since they will unnecessarily strain your server resources and negatively impact the loading time. Consider installing WordPress plugins one at a time to keep an eye on the ones that slow down your website.
3. Unoptimized Theme
WordPress themes are a set of files, templates, and modules that help in the formation of your website design. They carry plenty of feature options that allow you to design a website you desire.
Unfortunately, we do not utilize all of these feature options offered by themes and they become an unnecessary burden on our servers.
In short, the theme of your WordPress website also decides its loading time. Using a heavy or poorly coded theme will slow down your site. Also, your website’s speed might suffer if you do not perform regular theme updates.
To solve this problem, we recommend choosing a well-optimized and lightweight theme.
Go for a minimalistic design rather than loading your site pages with a lot of elements. Keep your website structure clean and clutter-free by adding only those elements that are truly essential.
In addition to that, update your website theme to the latest available version. We also recommend looking for a theme with a responsive layout as it will prevent your website from slowing down on tablet and mobile devices.
4. Lack of Caching
Caching is a mechanism for saving a copy of website files at a place other than the original data location. When a user visits your website for the first time, the browser stores your site’s data in a temporary storage location called cache. It contains saved website files copies.
If you are not utilizing the power of caching, you are far behind your competitors. Lack of caching leads to slower WordPress sites. It happens because the whole of your website content reloads on the user’s browser every time he/she returns to your website.
The only solution to this problem is using a reliable caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache. They can solve your page speed issues as your website files won’t be reloaded for repeat visitors.
Additionally, the user’s browser won’t wait for your server to fetch the data. Instead, it will serve the requested content immediately from the cache memory. This results in shorter loading times.
5. Large Images and Media Files
You must be sharing visual content with your website audience to offer a better user experience. Using images and other visual media files within your website content is an excellent way to keep your visitors engaged.
However, the problem arises when you use large images and media files. Uploading unoptimized and large visual content to your website puts unnecessary pressure on your web server.
As a result of heavy images and other media files, your page load time suffers. When you add more and more files to your media library, this impact multiplies and your WordPress website slows down considerably.
To prevent this problem, always use correctly sized images and optimize them before you upload them to your WordPress media library. Also, use an image optimization plugin to further boost the speed of your website.
We recommend the free WP plugin Smush for efficient image compression and optimization.
6. Unused and unoptimized JavaScript and CSS Code
Your WordPress website is made of themes and plugins which are built using JavaScript and CSS code. Most websites tend to load some codes that are never used. These unused and unoptimized JavaScript and CSS codes can drastically increase your page load times.
Further, the code that is necessary to run your website also adds to your overall loading time. So when you have a large website or an eCommerce store built on WordPress, your website can slow down considerably.
As a solution to this problem, use the power of minification on the code that is necessary to run your website. Minification is the process that removes irrelevant characters and spaces from JavaScript and CSS code while keeping its functionality intact.
Code minification reduces the overall file size by efficiently optimizing the code, thereby reducing the page load times.
We recommend using a free WordPress plugin like WP Super Minify to optimize your website code.
Furthermore, remove all unused code from your website to increase its speed. Consider using Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) to look for those CSS and JavaScript files that contain unused code.
7. Too Many External HTTP Requests
Your website contains multiple stylesheets, external scripts, and font files for proper functioning. Using too many of these resources will increase the amount of HTTP requests to your server.
Each of these requests initiates a communication between your server and the user’s browser. So the more the number of HTTP requests, the more time it takes to load your website.
To solve this issue and optimize the performance of your website, try to limit the number of external requests on all web pages of your site.
For more improvements, use asynchronous loading wherever possible. It allows loading certain resources of a web page in the background while the remaining resources continue to load.
We recommend using the free WP plugin Speed Booster Pack to defer the loading of website elements. This improves user experience and speeds up overall page loading.
8. Unoptimized server environment
Still figuring out “Why is my WordPress site so slow”? Well, an unoptimized server environment can also lead to a slow WordPress website.
You might be using an outdated Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). Your hosting provider doesn’t automatically update your WordPress to its latest version. Using out-of-date PHP will seriously impact your site speed.
To solve this problem, keep an eye on the latest available PHP versions. Also, consider increasing variables like PHP memory limit to boost your website speed. Always keep your WordPress version updated to the newest release.
9. Unoptimized Database
A website’s database carries all the files and information required to run it. Your site pages, user accounts, posts, media files, and all other data are stored inside its database. If you do not optimize it regularly, your website will become sluggish.
An unoptimized database might also cause errors in content loading from your server. It can lead to your website becoming unresponsive or slowing down.
As a solution to this problem, we suggest you configure your website database correctly and maintain it regularly. Optimize it from time to time and free up space by removing outdated content, spam comments, and redundant features.
If you do not have much technical knowledge, we recommend against deleting anything manually from your PHP file. Instead, use a reliable plugin like WP-Optimize to safely delete unwanted elements from your database.
10. Lack of Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) helps in the efficient optimization of website speed. The lack of a CDN will lead to slower website performance.
Basically, CDN is a network of interconnected servers distributed all over the world. Copies of your website data are stored on the whole of this network to deliver content to your visitor from the nearest server. This helps in increasing your website speed considerably.
All requests from your visitors are handled by your host’s server single-handedly. Also, if your hosting provider has its server located in the US, your website visitors from other countries won’t find your site as fast as US visitors will experience.
To speed up your website, use a reliable CDN like Cloudflare. It will take a lot of burden off of your main server. Your web server won’t have to process as many requests as it would do without a CDN. So your WordPress website will not slow down even on high incoming traffic.
11. Pop-Up and Ads
Pop-ups and ads are a great source of income. However, overloading your website with too many ads and pop-ups negatively impacts its speed. Additionally, it also leads to a bad user experience.
All this affects your website’s Google ranking as well. Overloading your site with ads can result in the violation of Google spam policies.
To prevent your website from burying down the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), limit the number of ads you display.
We recommend opting for 2 to 3 ads and 1 pop-up on a web page. Place your ads neatly in the sidebar or bottom of the page to prevent them from covering your website content.
Conclusion
A single factor doesn’t decide the page loading times of your site. You might need to work on multiple issues to speed up your WordPress website.
Examine your website with the Query Monitor plugin or Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) to determine the constraints. Also, work on the factors we listed above to boost your site speed.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Do plugins slow down WordPress?
Yes, plugins slow down WordPress since they carry a set of codes that are executed each time someone visits your website. Installing more plugins results in a further reduction in site speed since multiple sets of codes will be executed by your server.
How many plugins is too many for a WordPress site?
Though there’s no specific rule as to how many plugins are too many for a WordPress site, we recommend keeping your number below 20. Also, do consider the quality of plugins over their quantity. Avoid using poorly coded plugins at all costs.
How much does page speed affect SEO?
Page speed does affect SEO since Google considers it a ranking factor for websites. Faster-loading websites offer a good user experience and Google’s algorithm rewards you for the same. So your page speed contributes largely to your website’s place in SERPs.