Best WordPress Performance Plugins to Improve Website Speed and Boost Engagement
Understanding the Importance of Website Performance
Correlation of Site Speed and User Experience
Website Performance and Search Engine Rankings
Search engines such as Google consider page speed a crucial factor concerning its algorithm. Faster-loading websites receive better search engine ranking and promote higher visibility.
By using techniques such as conducting in-depth keyword research, using meta tags, alt texts, organising content using impactful headers, thoughtful incorporation of keywords and crawling webpages.
Tools to measure engagement metrics related to speed
Key Performance Metrics to Monitor
1.Page Load Time
Page Load Time is the time between the user clicks the page and the time at which the page fully loads in the web browser.
Reducing the HTTP time, reducing the size of coded files, ensuring Javascript doesn’t block the rendering page, optimizing images and using browser caches are best practices for measuring load time.
Tools for monitoring load time effectively
1.Time to First Byte (TTFB) Time to First Byte (TTFB) is the time a browser takes to get the first data byte from the server. Some of the factors influencing TTFB are Network latency, DNS resolution time, SSL/ TLS Handshakes, compression and resource size, and Server and Backend data performance.5 ways to optimise TTFB for better performance:
- Fast server response time
- Optimise application codes properly
- Make use of Respond First, Process Later (RFPL) cache
- Optimise database queries
- Use content delivery networks
Page size denotes a fixed amount of memory stored in the computer’s data. It is usually measured in terms of kilobytes or megabytes. To minimise page size, it is advised to clean up coded files, compromise the image size, and convert images to AVIF images. Use PNG images for photos, WEBp images for smaller files, AVIF for maximum quality and compression of files, and PNG files for more transparency and graphics. This can be possible while using the best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress.
Overview of Essential WordPress Performance Plugins
A. Caching Plugins
Caching plugins are WordPress performance plugins. When a user opens your website, this plugin will simply pull all the data for the user. This prevents the opening of a website from scratch. Some recommended caching plugins are WP Super Cache, WP Rocket, Sucuri, WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Among them, WP super cache is the best plugin to speed up a wordpress site.
B. Image Optimization Plugins
Image Optimization Plugins are the best plugins for speeding up wordpress sites. These are used when images are large. It takes enormous time to load the website. Small image size helps to load a website faster giving a better user experience.
Optimization Plugins for Minification and Concatenation
Minification is a technique where a code is taken and all unnecessary links like white lines, spaces and breaks are removed. Raveka Technologies recommends using this plugin as it saves bandwidth usage, decreases loading time, lowers the use of resources and is less readable to hackers.
Recommended plugins for minification and concatenation
- Merge + Minify + Refresh
- W3 Total Cache
- Fast Velocity Minify
- Autoptimize
- Wp rocket