How to Impressively Increase the Speed 🗱 of a Site - Tip #1 Get Rid of Wordpress
Ok, I know I have already made a lot of enemies just with the title of this web page. If your main goal is to significantly make your website faster and make your web pages load dramatically faster, hear me out.
I began making websites in the year 2000. At that time, there was no such thing as Wordpress and I thank God for that because it forced me to learn HTML code and how to create websites by hand and how websites work.
I am not exaggerating when I tell you I have literally created hundreds of websites since 2000. Some using Wordpress and some not. One thing I have learned is that the ONLY benefit Wordpress provides is it allows anyone and their grandmother create a website because if your website is created with Wordpress it means you don't have to learn a single thing about HTML code.
You CAN Have a Fast 🗱 Website and Web Pages that Load Fast Using Wordpress
Don't get me wrong. You CAN have a fast website and web pages that load fast, even score a 100 via Google Page Speed test, both on desktop PC's and mobile devices with Wordpress being your websites content management system and framework.
However if you don't use Wordpress, you can much more easily have a blazing fast website that impresses your websites visitors and the search engines.
If you wonder if I know what I am talking about, take almost any web page on this site and plug any of our web pages url's into the Google Page Speed test and you will see almost every single page on this website scores at or near a 100% for both desktop browsers and mobile browsers. I challenge you to find a Wordpress site that performs this well with the Google Page Speed score. It CAN be done however and I will show you how.
Take your ego out of the equation. Having the latest and greatest Wordpress website with all the bells and whistles and all the visually impressive effects impresses only you and your friends. I guarantee you that your websites visitors AND the search engines are not so easily impressed. Here is why.
Regarding the Speed 🗱 of your Website What is Wrong with Wordpress?
There is a LOT wrong with Wordpress but just from a web page and website speed point of view ...
- Wordpress is a one-size-fits-all solution. What I mean by that is every Wordpress theme has lots of options that allow you to customize your website on a granular level, how your website and web pages look and behave and many other things. The problem with this is that your website and web pages end up having to load and process 10 times more code than needed and all this extra code comes at a price - your websites speed and web page load time. In addition, all that extra code is more garbage the search engines have to wade through to get to the actual content of your website - the words and information you provide your websites visitors. This is what your websites visitors and the search engines care about is the content, not the fluff or the visual razzle dazzle. A good analogy is pretend you go to the store to buy an air conditioner. You come home and open the instruction book which is 80 pages long. The instruction book has instructions in English, Spanish, German and French. This is because the maker of the instruction book realizes that alls kinds of people are purchasing their product so they have to make sure their instruction book caters to everyone. Only 20 pages of that instruction book apply to you and the remaining 60 are a waste. If your website is a Wordpress site it is like that instruction book. It contains tons of code that you don't need. I like to call it website code bloat.
- Wordpress websites load a lot of content remotely. From Javascript code to CSS to code and more, even fonts, all Wordpress websites load code from other websites. This slows down the time it takes for your websites web page to completely load and be ready for the website visitor to be able to use, scroll through and read you web page. Don't believe me? Go to any Wordpress website and right click on any of the web pages, click on the
View Source
menu item and look at all the urls that are located at other websites that the Wordpress site has to download to load, display and behave correctly. It is beyond ridiculous and aside from this significantly slowing down the speed of the loading of your web pages, its a ton of content that your website is dependant on that you have no control over. - Wordpress Plugins can create code conflict that can do more than just slow your website down. Wordpress plugins are independantly written blocks of code that add features and/or functionality to your Wordpress website. The only problem is all the hundreds of different Wordpress plugins are created by different people. The code of any one of the plugins can conflict with the coding of other plugins or your Wordpress theme in generally. At best this means the loading time of your web pages slows down - sometimes considerably. At worst, Wordpress plugin code conflicts can cause a complete crash of your website. This has happed to me more than twice. In addition, with each additional Wordpress plugin you install means even more unneeded code bloat that has to load every time one of your web pages load.
- Wordpress themes and/or plugins contain code you would not approve of if you knew about it. You would be surprised to know just how much Wordpress related code (themes and plugins) you automatically trust that you shouldn't. It could be as simple as code that creates a hidden backlink to the code developers website or even much worse. At the very least, this will hurt your reputation with the search engines. Although most Wordpress themes and plugins can probably be trusted, you never know which ones can't be trusted.
You Have a Choice - Simple, Easy to Navigate and Fast 🗱 OR Wordpress
Want to learn the most valuable lesson when it comes to your websites web pages speed and efficiency. Considering that the Google search engine is going to be responsible for most of your website traffic, do you think Google knows a thing or two when it comes to making web pages that provide visitors with what they want?
Take a look at any of Googles help pages. Do you see fancy schmancy or simple, uncomplicated, fast and efficient? Google does not use Wordpress. ENOUGH SAID!
Not Using Wordpress is NOT the Easy Way But
I know the idea of learning HTML coding seems like a really daunting and depressing task. I get it. But are you in this for the long haul or do you want to just try make some quick affiliate commissions and you don't really care?? I assume you DO care or your would not still be reading this web page on how to increase the speed of your website.
If you insist on using Wordpress but you still want your website to be as fast as possible and have your web pages load as quickly as possible, my best suggestion is to find a Wordpress theme that is as simple, uncomplicate and unfancy as you possible can. In fact you can search Wordpress themes using the word simple
or minimal
. Do a Google search for Wordpress themes that require the least amount of code.
To find the fastest possible Wordpress theme:
- As previously noted, search the Wordpress site for very simplistic and minimalistic themes. When you find one, try to find a couple of websites on the internet that use that theme.
- Perform the Google Page Speed test on some of the pages on the websites.
- Keep repeating these steps until you find a Wordpress theme that gets the highest possible grade on the Google Page Speed Test for both desktop and mobile.
Trust me, be focused on impressing your websites visitors and the search engines - not your friends. Both your websites visitors and the search engines love a website that is simple, uncomplicated, fast and real easy to find what they are looking for. If you think about it, when you search for something in a search engine, isn't this what you want too? If you want fancy go to a magic show and watch someone get eaten by a tiger. For your websites web pages speed and efficiency sake, go for simple. Remember the acronym KISS (keep it simple stupid).
Big Name Websites DO NOT Use Wordpress
Think about this: does Google use Wordpress? If Wordpress was a good idea, don't you think Google would use the Wordpress framework? If you think about it, any website that is a really big name name website is not using Wordpress.
I challenge you to think of one single website that is a bigshot on the internet that uses Wordpress. I also challenge you to think up or find a Wordpress website that scores a high grade on the Google Page Speed Test. When I say high grade I mean at least an 85.
If you REALLY want to be successful on the internet, model success. I think the biggest name out there to look at for the clues of success is Google. Do what Google is doing. Be like Google and even though it may take some more effort and work, I can promise you it is worth the results if you want a website that is not only fast, but a website you are proud of.
Sample Page Scores for Some Random Wordpress Websites.
At complete random, I search Google for a few terms and randomly took a few Wordpress sites and tested them with the Google Page Speed test tool. You can see the results below. The results for our website our at the bottom. We do not use Wordpress. If you think your page speed score does not matter to Google, I can tell you it is one of the most important metrics Google uses to determine where to places web pages in its search results.
A Slow Wordpress Website
Slow Wordpress Website
One Of The Slowest Wordpress Websites In The World
One Of The Slowest Wordpress Websites In The World
Another Wordpress Website On Thorazine
Another Wordpress Website On Thorazine
Another Wordpress Nightmare For its Visitors And Search Engines
Another Wordpress Nightmare For Its Visitors And Search Engines
Scrapers〘N〙Bots Perfect Web Page Speed Score
Scrapers〘N〙Bots Perfect Web Page Speed Score
Perfect Example of a Simple Site that is Fast as a Bullet
If you want a perfect example of a simple, attractive, easy to navigate super fast website then visit https://www.york.ac.uk/teaching/cws/wws/webpage1.html. The page barely takes 1 second to completely load. No surprise what the results were for the Google Page Speed test for this website.
Google Page Speed Test World's Fastest Website
Google Page Speed Test Worlds Fastest Website
Here is the reason this website is so amazingly fast ...
World's Fastest Website Minimal Code
World's Fastest Website Minimal Code
Maybe this website, visually does not have all kinds of bells and whistles BUT it is easy to navigate, understand and use, and you don't have to wait around for it to load. A breath of fresh air for its visitors and the search engines. HTML code is REALLY not all that hard to learn.
World's Fastest Website
World's Fastest Website
Additional Tips to Increase the Speed of Your Website
Not using Wordpress or using the most efficient and fastest Wordpress theme possible is just one of many tips to make your website blazing fast and make your web pages load almost instantly.
Here are other must read tips related to increasing the speed of your website: