This isn’t as easy of a question to answer as you may think, and even if you can make your website run really fast it doesn’t mean that Google will reward you for it. That being said, there are certain things that you can do yourself which will speed up your WordPress site without spending any money. For those SEOs out there, yes, this is another example of what not to do.
It’s important to note that Google has recently launched the Cloudflare Challenge, which is supposed to let webmasters find out how well they handle 8 different common issues with their websites. If your site fails, it is a good indication that you need to further optimize your site.
To make things even more complicated, there are many other factors that can affect your website’s speed. For example, external services like Google Fonts or Facebook tags can affect the loading time of your page. This is why you should definitely test everything in a staging environment to see if it affects the overall performance. It’s also important to remember that Google has updated its core ranking algorithm not too long ago. This happened in order to detect slow-loading pages and/or websites with issues and force them to lower down in search engine results for certain queries (see here ).
Google’s most recent core update ranks website speed higher than ever before. This means that if 2 websites are on equal footing, the faster website will capture the higher ranking.
While installing WordPress on a dedicated server, you need to make sure that it’s equipped with the following:
– SSD (Solid State Drive) – Google recommends using SSDs because they are 5 times faster than traditional hard disk drives. They also consume less energy and reduce mechanical noise.
This is something you should do if your host allows it. If not, then ask for one or select another hosting provider that does offer SSD-powered servers.
When installing WordPress itself, make sure that you choose a fast web server. Usually, this means that it should be running Apache or Nginx We recommend choosing one of them because they’re both open-source software, easy to use and configure – and free! It may seem strange but hosting is an incredibly important component of your website’s health. The wrong hosting can make your WordPress site incredibly slow. If you’re running a shared server, this is even more likely because many different websites are hosted on the same machine.
The biggest boost that you will get from a good hosting provider (apart from one that offers SSDs for its servers) is a solid caching solution. This option should be enabled by default in all reputable web hosts, but if it isn’t, ask your host to enable it for WordPress or just point your domain name to another provider’s website.
If you’re serious about growing traffic and making money with your blog, we recommend using Google Cloud Platform. We’ve been working with them for years now and they deliver exceptional quality at an affordable price. Another good choice would be to invest in professional optimization done by an agency like Spark Factory. When combined with strong SEO practices, you can truly take your site to the next level.
If you hire an agency make sure they offer analysis and optimization of your site as a whole, not just individual plugins or settings. You don’t want to end up paying for something that doesn’t actually fix the issues with your WordPress speed.
We’ve found Spark Factory to be talented, professional, and affordable. Feel free to reach out if you’d like a referral link or meet them at WordCamp Europe in Paris this year!
If possible, get hosting from someone who specializes in WordPress sites like Spark Factory. They’ll have access to better tech support than a company that only hosts static websites. If you’re serious about growing traffic and making money with your blog, we recommend using Google Cloud Platform. We’ve been working with them for years now and love their reliability and security.
If you are not actually making money with your blog, why are you blogging? If you’re just writing to practice for some future big project (like a book), then it’s valid to use the free WordPress template. But if this is your business, don’t waste time trying to do everything yourself when there’s no real gain in quality or efficiency by doing so.
It takes more than Google Analytics’ “page speed” score to run a successful website these days. There’s much more at stake than just getting that extra tenth of a second in page load times.
