Has your site been taken off-line by your hosting provider because of high WordPress resource consumption? If so then you are not alone. This issue is pretty common nowadays and the main cause in most cases is a malfunctioning plugin or script. Webmasters usually think that a website can't overburden a web server unless it has a virus or malware in it but that's not true at all. Even a completely clean website can wreck a server if it is not optimized thoroughly. Luckily it's really simple to reduce the resource consumption of a WordPress website and make it more reliable.
There are more than a few ways to optimize a WordPress website including:
- Decreasing visitors to your site
- Optimize your site so that it loads faster
- Use a reliable dedicated server
It's never a good idea to stop individuals from accessing your website so we can eliminate the very first option. The final alternative isn't practical for everybody either because getting a Virtual Private Server, dedicated host or a cloud system is very costly. In addition these options do not provide the same convinience that shared website hosts do. You'll need technical expertise and experience to run a web server. The only practical and inexpensive choice is the second one. With some simple techniques you can make your blog sleek and light-weight.
Use a Cache plugin - Using a cache is the best way to reduce server load and keep a website running even during traffic spikes. A cache plugin creates a static versions of each page of your site which are is served to the visitors. Once a page has been saved in the cache it can be delivered almost instantly. If you are not already using a plugin cache then you should then you should install one immediately.
Keep Your Site Updated - The WordPress community is constantly finding ways to make the system more effective and less resource intensive. Every new version comes with some key enhancements. That's why you should always keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. Same is true for plugins and themes. If a plug-in has not been updated in a long time, you must not make the mistake of installing it on your hosting server. It won't just increase resource consumption but might also create serious security loopholes in the system.
Optimize theme in use - Optimizing a theme is really easy but it can make a huge difference. Themes that have a lot of fancy graphics and tons of eye candy often use up a lot of bandwidth. A simple and elegant theme is not only better for the performance of your site but it also looks more professional. If you want to optimize your existing theme then the first step is to compress its CSS and JavaScript files. There are dozens of CSS compression utilities that can help you out. If you don't want to do things manually then there are some plugins that do the compression automatically.
Optimize your database - The WP database keeps accumulating junk content with the passage of time. This can include junk comments, drafts, deleted posts and post revisions. A bigger database is hard to process by the server and takes more disk space. To solve these problems log into the cPanel, click PHP My Admin and remove everything that is not required. But before making any adjustments don't forget to take a full back-up of your info.
Other quick tips on how to reduce WordPress resource usage include:
- Deactivate or delete plugins not in use.
- Use Google search rather than the default WordPress search.
- After updating to WordPress' newest version, always perform compatibility tests with the site's plugins and delete all that are incompatible.
If you'd like to spend less on hosting and get good search rankings then you must follow the guidelines provided in this article.
There are more than a few ways to optimize a WordPress website including:
- Decreasing visitors to your site
- Optimize your site so that it loads faster
- Use a reliable dedicated server
It's never a good idea to stop individuals from accessing your website so we can eliminate the very first option. The final alternative isn't practical for everybody either because getting a Virtual Private Server, dedicated host or a cloud system is very costly. In addition these options do not provide the same convinience that shared website hosts do. You'll need technical expertise and experience to run a web server. The only practical and inexpensive choice is the second one. With some simple techniques you can make your blog sleek and light-weight.
Use a Cache plugin - Using a cache is the best way to reduce server load and keep a website running even during traffic spikes. A cache plugin creates a static versions of each page of your site which are is served to the visitors. Once a page has been saved in the cache it can be delivered almost instantly. If you are not already using a plugin cache then you should then you should install one immediately.
Keep Your Site Updated - The WordPress community is constantly finding ways to make the system more effective and less resource intensive. Every new version comes with some key enhancements. That's why you should always keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. Same is true for plugins and themes. If a plug-in has not been updated in a long time, you must not make the mistake of installing it on your hosting server. It won't just increase resource consumption but might also create serious security loopholes in the system.
Optimize theme in use - Optimizing a theme is really easy but it can make a huge difference. Themes that have a lot of fancy graphics and tons of eye candy often use up a lot of bandwidth. A simple and elegant theme is not only better for the performance of your site but it also looks more professional. If you want to optimize your existing theme then the first step is to compress its CSS and JavaScript files. There are dozens of CSS compression utilities that can help you out. If you don't want to do things manually then there are some plugins that do the compression automatically.
Optimize your database - The WP database keeps accumulating junk content with the passage of time. This can include junk comments, drafts, deleted posts and post revisions. A bigger database is hard to process by the server and takes more disk space. To solve these problems log into the cPanel, click PHP My Admin and remove everything that is not required. But before making any adjustments don't forget to take a full back-up of your info.
Other quick tips on how to reduce WordPress resource usage include:
- Deactivate or delete plugins not in use.
- Use Google search rather than the default WordPress search.
- After updating to WordPress' newest version, always perform compatibility tests with the site's plugins and delete all that are incompatible.
If you'd like to spend less on hosting and get good search rankings then you must follow the guidelines provided in this article.
About the Author:
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