How To Speed Up Your Site Without Having to Change Hosts

Written by: Hosting Coupons on August 5, 2014

We all want a fast website, but it isn’t always necessary to change web hosts to get that extra speed boost. In many cases, all you need to do is make a few quick changes which can have a big impact on the page load speed of your website.

1. Disable any unused WordPress plugins

If your website or blog is based on WordPress, this is one of the first steps you should take, ensuring that any unnecessary plugins are disabled.

Almost every website will have plugins which were used at one stage, but then forgotten about. Unfortunately, these still take up space and if still enabled can add small amounts of time to the page load speed. If you have a number of plugins, these small amounts of time can add up and make your site load very slowly.

2. Update any outdated WordPress plugins and themes

Plugins and themes are often updated on a regular basis, offering not only improvements and additional features, but often include cleaner and simpler code which is quicker for the browser to load as a result.

3. Enable Browser Caching

If you use WordPress, useful caching plugins are W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.

For an extra boost, W3 Total Cache can also integrate with MaxCDN (see below for more on CDN’s)

4. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Let’s say you run a website which gets most of it’s hits from the US. Logically, you opt for a web server which is hosted in a US-based datacenter.

But what about those other visitors who may be based in Europe, Australia, or even China? Since they’ll need to connect directly to your American server, it’s likely they’ll experience slow page load speeds.

By using a CDN (Content Delivery Network), you can get around this problem. You’ll still have your main server (either a shared, VPS or dedicated server) in the country where most of your visitors are located, but your CDN company will

 

Once you have implemented these changes, you should see a difference (though it may be small) in the page load speed of your website. If you’re still experiencing slow loading times, you might want to contact your web hosting provider to see if there’s a problem at their end.