In this digital world, there are a plethora of platforms available for businesses. WordPress is one of the most popular and amazing platforms for the creation of a website for a blogger, business or any entrepreneur. With WordPress, it becomes super easy and quite convenient for the person to create a user-friendly and functional website that can even be maintained by any person who doesn’t have any technical knowledge.
HTTP Requests for WordPress!
There are many concerns associated with WordPress website design. One of the major concerns which are sometimes overlooked by beginners is the HTTP requests which can have a significant impact on the website’s speed and performance.
To attract more visitors to your website and for better conversion rate, page load times play a vital role. Every second something new is added to attract a number of visitors with custom imagery, dynamic content,more video and so on. Whenever we add any new asset, the website has to generate additional HTTP requests for better communication with the site’s browsers. However. HTTP requests have a significant impact on the speed of your site which may become extremely slow if HTTP requests are not reduced.
There are several ways that should be followed in order to reduce the HTTP request and not affect the user’s experience.
Clean Out All Unnecessary Images And Unused Data Files
While cleaning your WordPress image files that are not being used should be deleted on the priority. Apart from this generally the problem arises due to excess of server requests streaming form various plugins or data files that you may have installed but is not in use and taking up resources in the background.
Further, various embedded videos, social media feed plugins, images may be an extra burden for your website and can add unnecessary bloat to your website which will significantly reduce the website speed and performance. Therefore, check if there are any plugins, themes, or tools that you’ve installed and are not being used in your website than uninstall and delete them immediately for faster page loading speed. Uninstall and delete them immediately to free your website’s resources.
File Size Optimization
One of the greatest tips to manage files and images can be to optimize the size of the image file before you upload it to your website in order to reduce the resources it takes in the background. Tools such as WP Smush plugin can be used for the compression of an image on your website. Thus, in this way you are able to upload any type of high-resolution and beautiful images keeping the quality intact. Optimizing the size of your image before uploading will keep all the server resources and requests in check which will also help in the reduction of HTTP requests.
Use Lazy Loading Technique
What exactly is Lazy loading? Isn’t sounds interesting! It is a cool technology that can be used to reduce HTTP server requests. It is a type of plugin which restricts your unnecessary server requests by making them send only when a user scrolls down to an image or opens the data on a particular page. Thus, this helps you to enhance the page loading speed of your site by reducing unnecessary HTTP server requests.
Combine Both CSS and JavaScript Files Into A Single File
One of the major CSS and Javascript files is that it requires a separate server request every time a user visits your website which makes the page loading speed very slow. In short, we can say that the separate CSS and Javascript files can populate your website by sending each file a separate HTTP server request. Imagine how cumbersome it would be if you have hundreds of CSS and Javascript files on your website. However, this problem can be avoided by merging it into a single file which will significantly reduce the number of HTTP requests. This process requires a bit of technical knowledge so before doing that get complete knowledge about and do research on it.
Monitor And Ignore Irrelevant Assets
There are various plugins that can be used for handling the irrelevant and used assets on your website. The WP asset Cleanup plugin is generally used to handle the irrelevant and used assets. This plugin works in a similar way as the page loading technique in which it delays the requests for any type of plugins, files or any other asset that’s not being shown or being used when the visitor is viewing the page.
Clean And Optimize Databases
The database is used in WordPress to store everything which is required for making the site run smoothly and flawlessly. Gradually, after some time the databases may slow down your website. Therefore, it is vital to clean and optimize databases to keep the WordPress site run rapidly and smoothly. Don’t get worried that you will have manually have to open each and every database. Just relax! The WP-Optimize plugin will do your job and can be installed for free.
Removal Of Unnecessary Characters From The Source Code
We know that code can contain innumerable lines and when we add additional themes or plugins then it can affect the speed of your website. The code is necessary and useful but it may also contain some unnecessary characters which can be used in the source code that will slow down your website. A group of whitespace characters, line characters or comments can be removed in order to speed up your website. It may include a group of white space characters, new line characters, comments which we can safely remove in order to speed up your WordPress site.
There is a WordPress plugin that can be used for the minification of characters and W3 Total Cache will help you to deal with the caching problem effectively. Thus, this will improve the WordPress website time by using different types of plugins.
Choose A Swift WordPress Theme
Before you start working on your website, the WordPress theme should be chosen wisely. At first, it might seem that a theme with more images and a complex layout will attract more visitors but try to think beyond it and try to test the attractive themes in various browsers form a range of devices. You will be astonished to see what difference a theme can make to the entire speed of the website and may make your website slow. Therefore, themes for your website should be chosen wisely. The coding of the theme also plays a significant role in the performance of the website.
Split Larger Posts Into Several Posts
Larger posts can also make your website slow as there may be many videos and images attached so, try to split the post into multiple posts.
The Bottom Line
WordPress is an amazing and reliable platform for small and medium-sized businesses who are looking to start a website. It is the simplest website that is easy to create. Also, it is easy for you to add any type of images, themes, videos, plugins which may slow down your website with too many HTTP requests. So, to avoid the problem of speed and performance of the website, the above tips must be used which will certainly reduce the number of HTTP requests and will keep your WordPress website fast and smooth.
Contributor
Ravi Sharma, the founder of the web development organization named Webomaze, who has built his brand with great dedication and enthusiasm. He has created some of the best WordPress website designs that attract more visitors and help your business rank at the top of the priority list. Moreover, he has a complete knack of how to optimize your website and make its design effective and appealing for a better conversion rate. Also, he is a person full of zeal and enthusiasm who loves to explore various places.