How To Increase Your Website's Performance

Created by Haider Ali, Modified on Tue, 28 Oct at 7:45 AM by Haider Ali

We built our entire network around providing affordable high-speed cloud web hosting to our customers regardless the size of your website or the number of visitors you receive. Whether you're starting your first website or are moving over an existing website with thousands of visitors, we are going to help you speed things up!

Before we get started, it's really important to understand you can move your website to the server of all servers, but if you have poorly coded applications (i.e. WordPress plugins/themes) you're going to have to make some optimizations. Additionally, some performance tweaks are very unique based on your website, so this article will help explain some easy tweaks you can make.

Make Sure Your Website Is Updated

The majority of Webfoundr customers use WordPress to power their website which also means they have several custom plugins and themes to achieve their unique goals. Rather you're using WordPress or a similar application such as Drupal, the first step to optimizing your website is making sure your core application as well as any third-party plugins and themes are running the latest version.

Make Sure You're Using The Latest Stable Version Of PHP

At Webfoundr we make it very easy to select specific PHP versions for your website. We do this because we understand PHP updates may break your website and if you're running some custom code, it may take you a bit more time to get everything updated. Regardless, you're not going to achieve optimal performance until you're using the latest stable version of PHP. You'll also receive numerous security benefits.

Perform A Plugin/Theme Audit

Before we get into the meat of optimization, it's a good idea to evaluate the theme and plugin(s) you're using. Ask yourself:

Are all the plugins I am using 100% necessary?
Are there some tasks I can achieve without a plugin?
Are all the plugins I am using developed by professional developers that have good reviews and lots of installs?
Is my WordPress theme from a reputable developer and do they provide frequent updates?
Do they offer theme support and documentation and have a large community?

These are all very important because the more plugins your website has installed and activated, the more "taxing" your website can be on the server.

Remember a lot of plugins are developed with revenue in mind, meaning they may offer convenient functionality, but were they developed with performance and security in mind?

Additionally, just because a theme looks cool, doesn't mean it was developed to be fast. Most web designers develop around what looks good, not what runs fast.

If you're unable to safely answer all of these questions, now maybe the time to find a new theme or disable some unused plugins.

Perform A Website Speed Test

Important Note: For the most accurate results, please conduct all speed tests locally during this tutorial. While tools like GTMetrix are useful, we will be making DNS changes that these external tools will not reflect quickly, which can cause frustration

Once you've knocked out all the prerequisites, you can do an initial speed test to see how fast your website is loading.

For my example, I've setup a WordPress website that uses a custom theme along with the popular WooCommerece plugin.

I highly suggest doing this by opening up an Incognito (Private) Google Chrome window and loading up your website:

Next, Right Click -> Inspect:

This will bring up Chrome's dev tools and you should Click on the Network tab:

Now, go up to the top where the refresh button is, and hold down your left mouse click until a menu pops that allows you to select Empty Cache and Hard Reload. This is going to force your website to clear your local cache and pull a fresh copy of your website.

This will generate a waterfall load chart and show you the total time it took for your website to load:

As you can see, my example page loaded in 2.61 seconds, not bad, but it can be much faster.

Install LiteSpeed Cache Plugin

Since my example is using WordPress, I'm going to install the LiteSpeed cache plugin.

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin, featuring an exclusive server-level cache and a collection of optimization features.

Since all of the Webfoundr's Hosting packages use the LiteSpeed web server, This plugin integrates directly and is 100% free.

If you're already using LSCWP, you can skip this step.

Additionally, if you're using an alternative caching plugin such as W3Total Cache, I'd recommend reading their documentation to safetly remove. You'll likely see much better performance with LCSWP.

1) Login to your wp-admin area

2) Go to Plugins -> Add new on the left side:

3) Search for LiteSpeed Cache, click Install Now, then Activate:

4) Go to LiteSpeed Cache -> Cache make sure it's ON.

Mobile caching is disabled by default, it's likely you want to enable that.

Step Enable Object Cache/Memory caches

We offer Cloudlinux PHP versions for better security and control over PHP versions, extensions, and PHP option values. We recommend enabling Memory Cache and Object Caches for your cPanel account - adding extra thrust to boost WordPress website performance.

By Following these steps your Your website speed will be improved. Retest as we did in Step 4, and if you have any query contact to our Support team! We are here to help you :)