Why does my blog take so long to load? and how can I make my blog load faster? are questions often asked by so many blog owners, and in this article, I will answer those questions by showing you how to make your blog load faster.
Making your blog load faster is one of the ways to have a successful blogging career.
But before you think of making your blog load faster, you must first and foremost run a speed test to know the present speed level of your blog.
There are scores of online free tools that can help you achieve this, and you are going to discover them later in this article if you keep reading.
But before I show you how to make your blog load faster, let us first get to see why your blog takes so long to load.
What is blog speed?
Blog speed simply means the time it takes for a blog to finish loading when people click on any of it’s URL.
The importance of blog speed.
Blog speed is very important because if your blog takes so long to load, you are going to fall a victim of a high bounce rate, which is the number of visitors leaving your blog without accessing it.
According to Google research it is estimated that when the loading time of a blog increase from one to three seconds, the bounce rate is going to increase by 32 percent.
This means that if your blog pages does not load within a few seconds, the chances of visitors leaving your site is going to increase indefinitely.
As a matter of fact, if your web pages are slow, you will not be able to drive your blogs engagement and conversions.
Also blog speed is very important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO0 as blog pages are ranked by Google based on how fast they are able to load.
Thus if you want to run a highly-effective blog, it is very necessary to place much emphasis on optimizing your blog speed.
To do this you need to start by figuring out how long it takes for your blog to load.
How to Measure blog Speed
To figure out how long it takes for your blog to load, there are various tools you can use to test and measure blog speed. The two popular tools are Pingdom Website Speed Test and GTmetrix, and they both have beginner-friendly options.
However, we recommend you to start with Google PageSpeed Insights. This is an easy-to-use tool by Google that will enable you to measure and test the speed of your web pages on both desktop and mobile devices.
When you are trying to use PageSpeed Insights, simply enter the URL of the blog page you want to test into the text field, and click the Analyze button:
PageSpeed Insights is then going to analyze the content on your page, and show you the score on a scale of 0 to 100.
After showing you the score, it will also give you the list of suggestions that will help you to improve your page speed.
Why does my blog take so long to load?
There are so many issues that make your blog take so long to load and the most important ones are:
- Your web hosting provider. Some of the web hosting providers are resellers who lack enough resources to satisfy their clients. And if you are hosting your website with them, it is definitely going to have speed issues.
- Your WordPress themes and plugins. Using the wrong WordPress theme and too much plugins will definitely slow down your blog.
- Using large-sized images. If your images are too large in size, they are going to slow down the speed of your blog.
There is no need to shed more light on the above issues because you will understand them after reading this article.
How to make your blog load faster.
If you’ve been asking the question, how can I make my blog load faster? below are several ways to make your blog load faster.
- Use themes that are optimized for speed.
- Limit your use of WordPress plugins.
- Optimize your images for a fast load.
- Choose the best hosting providers.
- Upgrade to the latest Php version.
- Use a fast DNS provider.
- Don’t keep plugins and themes you are no longer using.
- Limit related or latest posts you are using on your blog pages.
1. Use themes that are optimized for speed.
Lots of WordPress themes are designed with speed functionality, but most times this functionality is only available on premium versions.
Thus, if you are using a free version of a theme, check to confirm if speed is included in its free feature before you settle for it as your blog theme.
Even though you can use a plugin to extend this functionality, using the right theme optimized for speed will be much better.
But the best choice is to go for a premium theme if you have the money, and you will definitely enjoy its speed functionality.
2. Limit your use of WordPress plugins.
Though plugins are created to enhance a blog’s functionality, using too many of them at a time will definitely slow down a blog’s speed.
There is neither a minimum nor a maximum number of plugins that one can install and use on WordPress. It all depends on the purpose of your blog, hence the plugins needed to achieve that purpose.
But if you seek my advice, I suggest you limit the use of your WordPress plugins to 15 or 17. And try as much as possible to avoid pop-ups and backups plugins, because they tend to affect the speed of a blog so much.
3. Optimize your images for fast load.
The bigger the size of your images, the bigger your blog pages will become, and it in turn will make your blog load slowly.
So make sure you resize and compress your images before you upload them. If you can’t do it manually, you can use a plugin to achieve that. Jetpack and WP Optimize are the best I know.
4. Choose the best hosting providers.
There’s no denying the fact that most of the speed issues experienced on blogs are caused by their web hosts.
Hosting plays a very important part in the page speed of every blog. An expensive or popular host is not a guarantee of speed as cheaper hosts tend to even work better.
At times, the plan you are using might be the cause, but all the same, if you suspect your speed issues to come from your host provider, then either upgrade your plan or switch to a better host.
5. Upgrade to the latest Php version.
It’s rather unfortunate that lots of blogs are still using pho 5.6 which is a little version of PHP that hurts a blog speed a lot.
Though it is your host that handles the part, you can manually upgrade from your Cpanel, or simply contact customer care on your web hosting provider and request them to upgrade your PHP to the latest version.
6. Use a fast DNS provider.
DNS means Domain Name System, and it is like your phonebook on the Internet. Your web hosting provider can make it available for you.
The 2 hosting platforms am using are Domainking NG and TrueHost Ng. which have the best DNS resolver I’ve experienced so far.
If you make any of them your DNS provider, I bet you will have a better value for your money.
7. Don’t keep plugins and themes you are no longer using.
Do not just uninstall a plugin or theme and keep them, rather delete them totally. Because their database can still hurt your blog speed if they are still sitting there.
8. Limit related or latest posts you are using on your blog pages.
Though putting related or latest posts after your contents are very good because it displays several other topics on your blog that might interest your readers and keep them longer on your site.
Displaying more than 10 related or latest posts, especially with excerpts and featured images can slow down your site.
So make sure you limit your related or latest posts to 5 or 10.