When it comes to websites, WordPress is a major player in the online world. Almost 40% of websites are built on WordPress. It allows users to make high-functional websites without writing any code.
Plug-ins play an important part in making WordPress websites more functional. These plugins benefit both the website owners and the users. From improving website speed to user experience, these plugins save your website from going down the tubes.
Moreover, in today’s quickly evolving SEO world, Google prefers websites with better functionality and user experience. Plugins allow your website to improve in these aspects.
Let us discover all about WordPress plugins and boosting your website’s performance.
Why Your Website Performance Matters So Much
Have you ever seen a website that had zero aesthetics, took forever to load, and had broken links? In such a scenario, we often blame our internet connection. But if you have a high-speed internet connection like Xfinity Internet, then it is less likely to be the culprit. Instead, we should be blaming the website with the terrible performance.
Website performance means its ability to load quickly and seamlessly for the user. Website performance is a key metric for its high-ranking on Google. Aside from forming your brand image, a website also determines the credibility of your brand in the eyes of Google. If Google crawlers determine that your website is user-friendly and performs well, then your ranking is improved.
Apart from these aspects, here are some reasons why your website should perform well:
- It automatically improves user experience.
- It builds brand credibility and customer loyalty.
- It increases the chances of lead conversion.
- It significantly decreases bounce rates.
- It makes hosting your website cost-effective.
How to Choose the Right Website Plugins?
There are gazillion WordPress plugins available for many different feats. However, WordPress does not make all the plugins. Some of these are made by the WordPress community members. Therefore, the quality of these can vary a lot.
This is how you can find the right plugin:
- Reviews
Most plugin users leave honest reviews under each plugin. Reading these reviews is the best way to gauge how helpful those plugins are. Another good way is to visit the websites that have these plugins installed. This way you can see for yourself how good the plugins are.
- Active Installations
Popularity is another metric to gauge a plugin’s credibility. For this, you should look at the ‘Active Installations’ to see how many people are using that plugin. If the active installations are more than 100,000, consider it a green flag.
- Updates:
Another thing you need to see about each plugin is how frequently they get updates. You can do so by seeing the ‘Last Updated’ section. The latest update should be done within the last 6 months.
Updates are necessary for the plugins to be compatible with each WordPress update. Otherwise using a plugin that hasn’t been updated in a long time can expose your website to cyber threats. All in all, just be mindful that the plugin is actively supported by its dev team.
- Support
A good plugin has a rock-solid support. This means seeing if the help requests by the users are answered in a short time. This support is crucial for non-technical folks because the chances of running into troubleshooting problems are always there. However, most paid or premium plugins already have top-notch support.
- Multi-Functional
It is smart to look for plugins that offer multiple functionalities. This way you can get value for money without having to manage different plugins. Moreover, having too many plugins can negatively impact your website’s search rankings. Most premium plugins offer multiple functionalities.
Now let us get to the best plugins for improving your WordPress website’s performance.
Best WordPress Plugins for Enhancing Website Performance
- WP Rocket
If your website struggles with speed, then WP Rocket is the plugin for it. It is a caching plugin that makes your website faster and increases your Google PageSpeed score. It also optimizes it for the Core Web Vitals which are Google’s metrics for a website’s user experience, interactivity, and visual performance. Moreover, WP Rocket starts working on your website right after installation, without any additional configurations.
On top of that, WP Rocket is compatible with all popular WordPress updates and themes. The plugin uses innovative technologies like GZIP compression, browser caching, delayed JavaScript Execution, unused CSS removal, and page caching to improve your website performance. All in all, the WP Rocket plugin can help you improve your website performance and search engine rankings.
- Smush
Image optimization has become a priority now that it contributes to the overall website performance. Smush is a top WordPress plugin for image optimization. It optimizes your website’s images into the perfect size and resolution to improve its performance. This includes compressing, resizing and changing image formats (from JPEG to WebP) to decrease page-load times.
Moreover, it also enables lazy loading which improves website speed by loading the necessary images. It has top-notch support and is continuously tested to maintain quality and speed. It has multiple plans i.e., basic, super, and pro. Lastly, it does not impact your server as all the image optimization is done independently. This prevents wastage of your server resources.
- Autoptimize
Autoptimize makes optimizing your website a piece of cake. With Autoptimize, you can make your website faster by optimizing your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It pairs well with other WordPress plugins like WP Rocket for page caching. All these features and functionalities contribute to decreasing page-load times. However, Autoptimize can become a complete package as well.
With Autoptimize’s premium power-up, Autoptimize Pro, users can get more website improvement capabilities. The power-up adds lazy-loading, page caching, Content Delivery Network (CDN), and many powerful ‘booster’ features. All of this comes within one paid plugin, so you do not have to manage multiple plugins at once. Lastly, the power-up also improves server response times.
- W3 Total Cache
Cache plays a huge role in a website’s speed. W3 Total Cache is a page-caching plugin that improves your website speed, especially for frequent visitors. It does so by caching pages, minifying code, integrating CDN, and converting WebP images. It also lazy loads Google Maps and optimizes your full site delivery. On top of that, it is compatible with WordPress version 5.3 or higher and has excellent support.
Large websites can benefit greatly from all-in-one caching websites like W3 TC. It improves every practical aspect of your website, to improve its speed and performance. Moreover, W3 TC allows your website to score well in the Google Core Web Vitals. Lastly, W3 TC allows you to save 80% bandwidth by minifying code, which further improves user experiences.
- ShortPixel
Niche websites are dependent on images to grasp the audience’s attention. However, these images make the website slower and cause it to have a lower Google Page Speed score. Short Pixel allows you to compress your website images with usual file formats like PNG, JPEG, etc. What makes it stand out is that it also compresses unconventional file formats as well.
Moreover, this free plugin increases website performance and allows image-heavy blog posts to load quickly as well. Its bulk photo optimization feature is effective enough to compress all images including thumbnails. Moreover, the latest update allows it to optimize image in the background through recurrent cron jobs. It has a sterling 24/7 support and is compatible with 4.8.0 or higher.
- PerfMatters
Permatters is a lightweight website performance plugin. It is easy to use and does not require you to get into your website’s codes to improve functionality. Its primary feature is disabling unused scripts which reduces HTTP requests. This improves your website’s performance and speed. It also optimizes your website database and clears out things like revisions, auto-drafts, etc.
Its simple interface with toggle bars allows you to have complete control of your website. You can easily disable or limit emojis, embeds, post-revisions, and comments. You can also use its robust script manager and its exceptional lazy loading capabilities. This way, you can improve your website speed, performance, and Google ranking. Lastly, it is a paid plugin, with its personal plan starting from $24.95 per year.
Bonus Tips for Improved Website Performance
- Check your WordPress website’s speed after every update. You can visit PageSpeed Insights to see your website’s loading speed.
- Make sure your website’s databases are optimized. The auto-save feature in WordPress fills your site databases with unnecessary stuff.
- Choose a credible hosting provider known for good speed. Shared hosting often slows your website speed if your neighbor gets a lot of website traffic.
- Keep the plugins on your website to a minimum. Too many plugins result in slowed speed.
