Are WordPress Websites Too Slow?

WordPress is known for being user friendly, allowing almost anyone to add content to it and install plugins to add features that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars for a developer to implement.

As WordPress has matured, the files it needs to function have increased, and with that many consider WordPress to be “bloated”, packing in so many features that it becomes slow and unwieldy.

But just because you build a website with WordPress, doesn’t mean it’s going to be unusable. Here are some ways to make WordPress the best it can be.

Use Plugins Sparingly

I mentioned earlier how plugins can add important features to your website, but this can be a double-edged sword. A big plugin with a lot of code adds to the size of your website, and thus makes it slower.

There are WordPress websites out there with hundreds of plugins! Not only can they decrease your site’s speed, but plugins that arent updated can make you vulnerable to hackers who have found ways to misuse these plugins and access your database or credentials.

Only use plugins you absolutely need or make your life easier.

Keep Your Styles Svelte

Before a website can load, it needs to load the styles for the site. These styles are written in CSS files, and the bigger these files become, the loading time also increases.

CSS should be minified, and any unused styles purged(essentially they are not loaded).

Optimize Images

Images that are not sized properly or compressed can add to your sites load time. You can imagine if a site has to load 10 giant images, it’s going to leave the user staring at empty or semi-loaded gaps in your website.

For the site you are currently on, I resize my images to 1500px by 1000px and bring their fidelity down to half. This will leave you with images that are around 40kb in size, which is what you want.

WordPress automatically creates a thumbnail, medium, large, and full-size version of all images, as well.

I just looked at my website Men Called Uncle, a blog I built with WordPress and I’m already noticing some things I can do to improve the site. Images being a big one.

I ran a Lighthouse report, a tool created by Google that measures how well your site performs, and although it scores a 100 in all the other values, its performance nets a lowly 83.

Optimization is key with WordPress.

Themes Can Also Bog Down Your Site

Themes are one the coolest things about using WordPress. Anyone can find a theme they like and use it on their site. No developer skills required, but even these themes can hinder your sites performance.

It can be hard to tell what themes are well optimized and what ones are not, but I have found lists online that rate the quickest. If you have a developer building you a custom theme, you shouldn’t have to worry about this.

Conclusion

I enjoy WordPress. Yes it’s heavy and could use some pruning, but there’s a reason it’s so widely used. The sites I built with it were relatively easy with the features baked into WordPress itself.

A WordPress website can be slow, but so can any website, if efficiency isn’t taken into account. Ideally you want a web developer building your WordPress site than someone who only focuses on customizing themes and managing your sites content.