The best way to optimize WordPress theme development to improve performance
by 24@Help
WordPress is considered a famous content management system that helps to manage your website content, improve website performance, and many more. If you have a poorly optimized WordPress theme, then it can result in a slow loading time of your website which can negatively influence the success of your website and search engine ranking. As a business owner, now it is your responsibility to ensure the WordPress theme development for your website that ensures a better user experience. But, how to optimize your WordPress theme and maximize your business performance.
Tips to optimize WordPress theme and improve performance
How to optimize WordPress themes and improve performance?– is a common question that must be running through your mind. Well, following the right tips and techniques can help you to optimize WordPress themes and improve business performance. The expertise tips are highlighted below.
- Minimize plugins
Plugins are considered to be helpful for your website, but they are also responsible for slowing down the performance of your website. Usually, such kind of issues is observed when you are using too many plugins on your website. It has been found that every plugin adds extra database and code queries that can influence the performance of your website. Thus, it is crucial to delete some plugins that you do not require and select lightweight plugins to optimize your website. Moreover, you can also use multi-purpose plugins by combining functionality that provides multiple features.
- Select a lightweight theme
The selection of a lightweight theme is important when optimizing your WordPress theme. It has been found that the lightweight theme requires fewer resources and has a smaller file size that can help you to load your website faster. Many experts recommend avoiding using bloated themes that are available with many unique features that are not even required, as it can slow down your website performance. For instance, many famous lightweight themes are available that you can choose for your business website, including OceanWP, GeneratePress, and Astra.
- Use caching
The caching process helps to store accessed data in temporary storage so that the retrieval time can be reduced. Thus, it is crucial to use caching plugins like W3 Total cache or WP Super cache to cache your WordPress pages and enhance the performance of your website.
- Optimize images
You may use different designed images in your website to make it look more attractive, but do you know that these images can slow down your website? If your image is not optimized, it can slow down your web performance. However, it is possible to optimize your images by using an image optimization plugin like Imagify or Smush.
By using the right file format, like PNG for logos and graphics and JPEG for photographs, compressing images to minimize their file size without compromising on quality, and resizing images to the right dimensions before uploading on your website, you are able to optimize your WordPress theme.
- Optimize your database
You can see clutter in your WordPress database over time that can influence the performance of your website. Thus, you need to optimize your database in order to bring WordPress theme development. By doing post revisions and removing spam comments, deleting any unnecessary plugins, media files, and themes, and optimizing your database tables using plugins like WP-Sweep or WP-Optimize, it is impossible to optimize the database.
- Stay cautious with the use of videos
The use of large videos can slow down your website. Thus, it is a good decision to avoid using more videos as they can take up more space and directly affect the WordPress website’s speed. It is recommended to use videos as little as possible and try to use only requisite videos.
- The utilization of a performance monitoring tool
The performance monitoring tool is helpful in determining the performance issues in the website and monitoring the performance over time. You can find many performance monitoring tools in the market that include GTmetrix, Pingdom, Google PageSpeed Insights, etc. If you want to optimize WordPress custom themes, then do not forget to use these performance monitoring tools.
- Remove spam comments
When looking to optimize WordPress customization themes, it is crucial to remove spam comments. You need to ensure that all spam comments are removed, as they can cause fast depletion of your website’s server resources. For instance, you can use the Akismet plugin that can help to block harmful and spam comments.
Apart from this plugin, you can also choose some other plugins to get rid of harmful comments, including WP-SpamShield Anti-Spam, Spam Comments Cleaner, and Stop Spam Comments. Before using these plugins in your website themes, make sure you have done proper research about each of these plugins.
Final word!
It has been found that website speed is important for boosting search engine ranking and retaining visitors. Now, you can offer a better user experience to your users and improve the performance of your WordPress theme by following the above-mentioned expertise tips.