Websites that load quickly offer a better user experience which lends itself to longer visits, more fans and ultimately more business. The challenge for visual artists is that an online portfolio inherently represents an obstacle to speedy performance due to the fact that your page content consists of mostly images, which take longer for servers to process than text.
Let’s explore 5 methods that you can implement right now to improve the performance of your WordPress website.
Before employing any of the following strategies I recommend creating a backup your website.
1. PHP 7
While the minimum version of PHP that Minimal themes support is 5.6, there’s been a great deal of buzz around PHP 7, which promises performance gains, reduced memory consumption, and improved security. In fact, results show that with PHP 7, WordPress sites are more than twice as fast!
All current versions of Minimal themes are compatible with PHP 7.0. Upgrading is often a simple matter of accessing the PHP Config settings within your web hosting admin and making the switch. Of course, you may also contact your web host support team directly to request assistance if needed. Before upgrading I recommend installing and running the PHP Compatibiity Checker plugin by WP Engine to check for potential incompatibilities with any of your plugins.
2. Web hosting
The technology, configuration and location of the servers that deliver your website to the world are vital to your website’s performance. Poor server performance is normally related to your web host. Less expensive hosting usually means that your site will share resources with other websites on the server. Therefore, the number of websites on the server at the same time and the amount of shared resources they consume will play a role in the overall performance of your website.
WordPress.org recommends Bluehost, SiteGround and Dreamhost as economical hosting options. To this list I also like to include WP Engine.
3. Theme and Plugin Code Density
A well-crafted WordPress theme will go a long way to enhancing the performance of your site. Our signature themes, Made and Eero, represent our most efficient themes from a code base and efficiency perspective. Plugins may also play a major role in slowing down your site. If the backend of your website is bogged down by excess code and javascript, it will take longer for servers to process requests. Review your plugins and delete those that are not absolutely necessary.
4. Images
There’s no way around it; as a visual artist the purpose of your website is to present your online portfolio. This means that your pages will consist of many more images than an average website. Images represent large, dense elements that will slow down your site.
I recommend the following image sizing convention as a general guideline to produce images at optimal sharpness and weight:
- 1500 pixels (longest side)
- 72dpi
- Save for Web in Photoshop (Shift-Option-Command-S on Mac computers)
- Select High or Very High Compression quality
- JPEG format
5. Page Cache
Caching can make your WordPress site anywhere from 2x to 5x faster. A caching plugin makes a copy of a page after it loads so it can serve the cached version to every subsequent user.
Comet Cache and WP Super Cache are two popular caching plugins. If you are using a managed WordPress hosting provider such as SiteGround or WP Engine you do not need to install an additional caching plugin because your web host has already taken care of this aspect of page speed optimization for you.
Join the conversation by sharing your own thoughts and feedback in the comments.
