Learn how to optimize WordPress

The WordPress themes and plugin we have designed offer much in terms of SEO, but we can’t do a lot in terms of website optimization. Here are several tips on how to optimize WordPress.

Why haven’t you optimized everything?

While we have done some great work in that area, we simply can’t do everything – there are too many variables that prevent us from using a unified solution. Where will the website be hosted? With us or somewhere else? What if their server has some strange rules that prevent something we have done from working correctly? What if the user wants to add something and we are already serving cached content?

1. Get a WordPress optimization plugin

Our number one choice is the W3 Total Cache plugin. It’s a great plugin for speeding up WordPress-based sites. You can use the preview option to see how the W3 Total Cache plugin will affect your website.

Why isn’t it installed by default?

This is a third-party plugin, which we recommend. However, this is not the only WordPress optimization solution out there, and some people may prefer to use a different plugin or to change things manually.

2. Enable cache control

On our web hosting platform, you can do that by adding a few lines of code to the .htaccess file:

# 480 weeks
<filesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=290304000, public"
</filesMatch>

Why haven’t you done this for me?

If this setting is enabled by default, this means that if you make any changes to your files, you will not see them online because the browser will cache them locally. This is why we recommend you to enable it only when you have finished customizing the theme to your liking.

3. Compress your website

The advantage of website compression is that it reduces the time needed for your website to load. Instead of serving 500KB files, you can now serve a single, smaller file, which the visitor’s browser will unarchive. You only need to add a few lines of code to your .htaccess file to enable compression:

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript

Why haven’t you done this for me?

Again, if we enable this by default, your website will be tricky to update. Content compression should be enabled only after you have finished making modifications to your website.

4. Check your site’s performance

Check your website’s performance using the Google PageSpeed tool here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights#. At the top of the page, you will see your PageSpeed rank. On the left, Google will list suggestions on how to improve your website. A higher score is a better score and Google likes websites that load faster.