WordPress is a very handy platform even for users that do not do coding. They can install plugins to improve their website scores on GTmetrix and Page Speed Insight easily. These 4 recommendations posted below are based on my 4 years experience on website optimization.

  1. The first thing you need to do is to remove all files that aren’t necessary on the page. Doing this will improve mostly everything, less files being loaded equals better loading speed and less issues. For this I recommend installing Plugin Disabler. However, you need to make sure that you know the features of your page to avoid having unnecessary issues.
  2. After making sure that you have all your files on each pages sorted out. Install Merge Minify Refresh, you need to trim the files down a bit more by combining them and rendering fewer files for the checker to scan.
  3. Okay, now since you’re all good with files, lets move on to caching. Install W3 Total Cache. It’s caching, it’s basically creating a static file of your websites in a specific set of intervals just so it will lessen the server load to help improve first contentful and meaningful paint score. You’ll get it when you’re using Page Speed and it’s very hard to improve.
  4. And the last on my list. Install WP Smush it, you can use all the features if you want, however, what I recommend most is to optimize all your images. Images are being cached by the browser so it will be very helpful for the first time viewer of your website and also for viewers that has failed to cache your site.

That’s it! This should help you a lot in improving the loading time and the score of your website and web pages. Good Luck.

Photo credit to https://unsplash.com/.

Written by Christian B.

I'm a web developer and programmer from Philippines. I have a diverse set of skills ranging from PHP, Laravel, Wordpress and many more. I believe in innovation and it is my passion, whether a project is a small or big - for me, every website deserves to be interactive and have the best web presence.