Some of these discussions will be generalizations, and that can’t really be helped. Some distant servers will run really quickly with low latency while other servers, despite being next door, will run slowly.

Some servers in a different country will be absurdly expensive while servers next door can be fairly cheap.

Nevertheless, when considering server location, here are some things that it may affect:

1. Latency

This is the big one.

The location of your server can change the amount of time that it takes for data to travel in between your site and users.

While it can be seconds or milliseconds, that time can add up when you are trying to load material or process a sequence of requests.

There’s a few different considerations here.

If you’re a large business, the origination point for your site might not matter too much because you’ll probably be using a CDN to spread your data around.

A CDN is a content delivery network, basically different instances and caches of your site located at strategic geographical points.

When a user requests information from your site, the origination point bounces the request to lower latency locations.

If you’re a small to midsize website, then you might not be using a CDN.

In this case, the location of your server might be more critical.

If you’re a small business, for example, catering to a single city, then it can be advantageous to put your site on a server in or near that city.

You might not want your website in a different country.

Then again, if you’re a small business, a 1 second difference in loading time might not be that big of a deal.

Using cookies and a cache on a user’s computer can also reduce latency.

Cookies are preference, and a cache is critical files.

If you can store your site’s cookies and cache on the user’s computer you can reduce latency because those files are loading from the user’s computer. 

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Indirectly, server location can affect your page rankings on Google. Websites that respond too slowly are known to get dinged for this in the rankings.

Google knows that they need to answer the searcher’s query, but they also need to do it in a reasonable amount of time.

And Google’s internal research has found that a reasonable amount of time, for mobile users at least, is about 3 seconds.

If you can load under 3 seconds you might get a better ranking than if you spin your wheels for longer.

While server location isn’t the only thing that affects load speed, it certainly affects latency and can change access to your site from different locations.

3. Google’s Geological Rankings

Google doesn’t really care where you locate your website if you use their Webmaster tool.

The Google Webmaster tool will allow you to target users who are geographically located in western Los Angeles, even if you have servers in Tokyo or Rio.

However, if you aren’t using Webmaster to geographically target certain users, and you’re using a .com or .org address, then Google might use your server location to obtain geographical information.

So there are ways to avoid being misinterpreted by search engines.

You can put your servers in a location that is relevant to your users and then use the location of the servers, but there’s really no reason why you’d have to.

4. Cost

Putting your server in a different country might be a more or less expensive way to host your website.

Some countries have lower energy costs and lower taxes, so you’ll spend less money or more money on your servers by putting them there.

There can also be tax differences in different states and regions.

Depending on whether you purchase or rent server space, you’ll classify these costs as hardware or operation costs, which can affect your tax structures.

5. Privacy and Security

Many different countries have different privacy and information laws which govern the way that governments can or can’t obtain information.

Which means that there are some sites that will want the protection of a certain political-legal location and may want to avoid others.

Of course, some countries won’t care if your servers are in another country or not.

They may still take action if you’re running the site out of their country.

For example, Japan doesn’t allow gambling.

You can’t put a gambling site on servers in Japan.

But you also can’t run a gambling site out of your house in Japan even if the servers are in a different country.

When you run a website out of one country and servers out of another, you might find yourself at interesting government and legal intersections.

Additionally, some industries and data types have compliance regulations for where the servers can be located.

You may not be able to store certain medical records or even medical-adjacent information on servers located in certain places.

More than Server Location

You should notice two things from this discussion: (1) none of these attributes are absolute, and (2) all of these categories have far more important considerations.

Using location to drop latency will not drastically improve your speed if you have low bandwidth and are pushing the data limits on your hosting plan.

Latency, in turn, will not increase your ranking if you have a poorly constructed site or have failed to do any hundreds of other search optimization tasks.

Additionally, while location can affect cost, there is more of a correlation than a causation with this one. 

The big thing to notice is the privacy and security discussion.

Assuming you aren’t storing sensitive records that hackers will actively attempt to break into your server facility and steal, then government and legal regulation is your big concern.

Understanding data privacy laws and internet laws for different countries are important before outsourcing servers there.

Also, when you run a website and business in one country and servers in another country, there can be interesting legal intersections that you run into.

However, as with any platform, there are always ways to optimize and improve performance.

This article will cover how to increase page speed on a WordPress site.

You may lose customers and visitors if your website takes too long to load.

People need websites to load quickly and efficiently in today’s fast-paced world.

If your site isn’t up to par, you could miss out on potential leads and conversions.

An Overview of Page Speed: A Primer

It is essential to understand page speed before taking steps to improve it.

Here are some key things to keep in mind.

What Is Page Speed?

Google defines page speed as “the time it takes for a page to load completely.”

A page includes all the content, images, and scripts.

Page speed tests measure load time in seconds, and a fast time is fully loaded in under three seconds.

There are several ways to determine page speed:

A fully loaded page measures how long it takes 100% of page content to load.

This metric includes all the resources, such as images, scripts, and CSS.

Time to First Byte measures how long it takes the loading sequence to begin.

First Meaningful Paint/First Contextual Paint measures how long it takes for enough of a page to load so that a visitor can read the content.

Why Is Page Speed Important?

Fast page speeds improve user experience, SEO, and conversions.

People are impatient and don’t want to wait for pages to load.

Users will go to a competitor’s site if your website is slow.

A slow page load time will frustrate users and prevent them from taking action.

A slow page load time could cost you a sale if a user is trying to purchase something from your site.

Search engines like Google examine page speed when determining where to rank your website in search results.

A faster site will generally rank higher than a slower site.

Faster websites convert more visitors into customers.

What Causes Slow Page Speeds?

Some of the most common causes are:

• Using a bloated theme or framework
• Unoptimized images
• Installing too many plugins
• Using a slow hosting provider
• Not caching website pages and files
• Not using a content delivery network (CDN)
• CSS is not optimized
• Poorly written code
• Excessive display ads

Can I Improve the Page Speed of My Website?

Yes, you can increase page speed by:

• Optimizing images
• Reducing redirects
• Caching web pages
• Minifying CSS and JavaScript
• Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Uninstalling unnecessary plugins
• Choosing a high-quality hosting company

What You’ll Need To Increase WordPress Page Speed

• A WordPress Site to Improve
• A Bit of Technical Know-How
• Time
• Access to a Developer or optimization expert

You need to have a WordPress site built and online to have some kind of baseline data from which you can work.

You’ll also need technical know-how to understand the reports and results of the tests you’ll be running.

Finally, if you’re not comfortable with code, you’ll need someone on hand who can help interpret the results and make changes to your website.

It may take a while to determine what’s causing your website to load slowly and to make the changes needed to improve performance.

Depending on the complexity of your website, it could take days or weeks to see results.

You’ll need access to a developer or optimization expert to help you make changes to your website.

If you don’t know someone who can do this, you can hire a freelancer or agency to help you.

The Best Proven Ways to Increase Page Speed

To increase page speed on your WordPress site, follow these steps:

Use a Lightweight Theme and Framework

One effective way to reduce page load time is to use a lightweight theme and framework.

A theme is the design of your website, and a framework is a code library that helps you develop themes and plugins.

Some WordPress themes and frameworks are better than others.

However, they are not all created equal.

Some are bloated with features you may never use, while others are very lightweight.

Using a bloated theme or framework can slow down your website because it has unused code.

A lightweight theme or framework will load faster because it only includes what is necessary to display the theme.

Several factors designate a theme that is fast and optimized:

• A low number of HTTP requests: The theme makes few HTTP requests to the server, which lowers loading times.
• Small page size (CSS, JavaScript)s: The overall size of the pages in the theme is small, which also helps with loading times.
• Optimized for speed: The code behind the theme design focuses on speed, so it doesn’t slow down the website.
• Customizable: The theme is highly customizable, so you can tailor it to your needs without adding bloat.

Compress Images and Deliver Them Efficiently

Images are often the largest files on a site, impacting page speed.

Therefore, it’s important to compress images and deliver them efficiently to help reduce file size.

One way to reduce page size is to manually resize images and change the quality.

Image compression is either lossy or lossless.

With lossy compression, some data loss occurs when the file compresses, but the quality remains high.

Lossless compression doesn’t lose any data, but the file size may not shrink as much.

Uploading an unnecessarily large image adds more data for your page to load.

Adjust the height and width in a photo editing program to ensure that your images are no larger than they need.

Some plugins can help you optimize images for the web.

One popular option is WP Smush.

It automatically compresses all images uploaded to your WordPress site, including thumbnails, featured images, and gravatar images.

It is also helpful to use the correct file format.

For example, web images are usually GIF, JPEG, PNG, or WebP.

• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF): These are small files seen in simple animations. Do not add too many GIFs to your site. Too many animations can increase load time.
• Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG): These are smaller than PNG files but also of lower quality. Lossy compression helps to reduce file size further. Use JPEGs for photos.
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG): These create sharper images and can have a transparent background. These images use lossless compression and have relatively large file sizes. Use PNGs for images that require the best resolution with the most detail.
• WebP: This is a newer format that uses both types of compression and is about 25-35% smaller than PNGs and JPEGs. All internet browsers do not yet support this format. WebP is a good choice for high-quality images with small file sizes.

Lazy loading images is another way to improve page speed. Lazy loading only makes images visible when a user scrolls to the part of a page where the image displays.

Select a Managed WordPress Host

Finding a reputable web hosting company is vital to having a fast WordPress site.

However, not all hosts are created equal, and some will be faster than others.

Don’t select the cheapest plan you can find, or you will have to deal with shared hosting.

This option hosts your website on the same server as other sites, which can affect page speed if multiple sites on the server are getting hit with a lot of traffic.

A managed hosting plan guarantees enough server resources to prevent page speed problems.

Cache Website Pages and Files

Caching helps improve performance by storing frequently accessed files and data for quick access instead of downloading all content from a server every time there is a request.

As a result, Caching can help reduce server load and make pages load faster.

Many plugins are available to help set up website caching, such as W3 Total Cache and WP Rocket.

Defer CSS and JavaScript Files

CSS and JavaScript files can often be the largest files on a site, impacting page speed.

Therefore, it is essential to defer these files to help improve performance.

Deferring CSS and JavaScript files means they will load after the rest of the content on the page.

This process can help improve performance because the browser can continue to load other content while the CSS and JavaScript files download.

Minify CSS and JavaScript Files

Minifying CSS and JavaScript files means reducing file size by removing unnecessary characters, such as whitespace.

Minifying these files can help improve performance because they will be smaller and take less time to download.

Many great plugins are available to help with minifying CSS and JavaScript files, such as Autoptimize.

Use a CDN

A Content Delivery Network is several servers located around the world.

CDNs can help improve performance by delivering content faster.

When someone visits your site, the CDN will deliver the content from the server closest to their location.

This process can help reduce latency and make pages load faster.

There are many excellent CDN services available, such as Cloudflare and StackPath.

Reduce Redirects

Redirects to other pages can often add unnecessary time to page load times.

Therefore, it’s essential only to use redirects when necessary.

There are several times when you might need to use a redirect, including the following:

• If you change the URL of a post or page.
• If you transfer your website to a new domain.
• If you are setting up a temporary redirect while making changes to your site.

Redirects can be implemented in several ways, depending on your server configuration.

Redirection is a popular redirect manager plugin for WordPress that can handle all details.

Wrapping Up

Slow page speed can hurt your business by causing people to leave your website before it has loaded completely.

Optimizing images, videos, and plugins can improve your website’s page speed.

Doing this will ensure potential customers see your content and have a positive experience on your website.

To increase the page speed of a WordPress site, you’ll need access to a developer or optimization expert who can help you make the necessary changes.

You may also need to invest some time in learning about the technical aspects of WordPress and how to optimize your site for speed.

Once you have the right tools and knowledge, you can make improvements to help your WordPress site load faster.

However, you don’t need to worry because we’re going to guide you through the ten best WordPress performance plugins to help you achieve peak optimization.

The best plugins are WP Rocket with Perfmatters coming in as a runner-up.

Why is WordPress So Slow?

The last thing someone wants is a website with slow loading times, as it can instantly turn users away.

According to research by Google, a one-second to five-second difference in page load time increases the probability of bounce by 90%.

If you ask why WordPress is so slow, a quick skim of the results may lead you to believe that the Content Management System (CMS) itself is faulty and slow.

However, as we’ll come to learn, that’s not the case.

So, the better question is: What’s making WordPress so slow? The answer? Let’s get into it.

What Impacts a WordPress Site’s Performance?

Unfortunately, there isn’t one universal culprit causing slow WordPress site performance.

Instead, many factors can impact load times. Here are five likely reasons WordPress site performance slows:

1. Hosting Type

WordPress is, by definition, a web-hosting service, but its available tools and services are specific to WordPress websites.

There are various hosting systems, and the type of web host can influence site performance.

For example, shared hosting means multiple websites live on the same server, making it a fitting choice for bloggers and small business owners but ill-suited for large companies.

2. Caching

The two ways caching impacts site performance is if there is un-cached content on a website and if there’s a full cache memory.

These two factors are significant issues that can result in slower performance.

3. Images

Full-size, uncompressed images take an absurd amount of time to download.

While uploading an uncompressed image to your website results in superior quality, it slows down site performance immensely.

Because of the delayed performance, website creators optimize their images by compressing them while ensuring the quality remains intact.  

4. Frontend Code

Frontend code is the programming that the user interacts with and experiences.

For example, the layout, color scheme, and graphics require frontend coding to complete a specific action upon interaction.

When frontend code is larger than needed, it can diminish site performance.  

5. Database

A poorly maintained or un-optimized database causes slower data fetching and response time.

The WordPress database exists in the backend code and is a crucial component of your website’s infrastructure.

Can WordPress Site Speed Be Improved?

Yes, you can improve WordPress site speed.

Luckily, it’s easy to see if your WordPress site is suffering, and there are various ways to fix and improve overall performance.

An Overview of WordPress Performance Plugins

Here’s an overview of performance plugins to gain a better understanding of how they work and what their role is in improving your WordPress site.

What is a WordPress Performance Plugin?

WordPress performance plugins are management tools that increase the overall range of customization.

For example, if a local cáfe wanted to sell its beans and logo online, it could install a WordPress performance plugin to create a shopping page.

Essentially, plugins make customizations available to anyone since code isn’t generally required.

Why Are WordPress Performance Plugins Important?

WordPress performance plugins improve the creation and performance of the WordPress software.

Moreover, performance plugins can help identify reasons for slow website loading times.

Without WordPress performance plugins, users would have limited creative freedom and limited access and ability to create their websites.

Best WordPress Performance Plugins For 2022

WordPress offers over 50,000 free and premium plugins for its users.

While easy access to thousands of plugins is helpful, it makes it difficult for site owners to choose a plugin that will ensure they achieve the maximum optimization possible.

Luckily, we’ve narrowed down the ten best WordPress performance plugins for 2022 – let’s get into it.

1. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a plugin that optimizes cache, decreases loading time, and enhances website performance.

Our Pick

WP Rocket is a plugin that optimizes cache, decreases loading time, and enhances website performance.

WP Rocket provides users with a fast experience, boosted SERP ranking, and more user traffic in general.

Visit WP RocketRead WP Rocket reviews

WP Rocket provides users with a fast experience, boosted SERP ranking, and more user traffic in general.

This caching plugin comes with lazy-loading images, deferred loading of JavaScript, CSS, and JavaScript linking and minification, preload, and more.

Our Rating

4.5 out of 5

Notable Features

• Page Caching

WP Rocket caches web pages into static HTML files, so they’re easily and quickly available upon request.

This feature applies to browser caching by storing popular files in the local cache memory.

• Compatibility

With WP Rocket, there’s no reason to worry about incompatibility, as it’s compatible with popular themes, other plugins, and WordPress hostings.

• Database Optimization

WP Rocket makes database optimization simple with specially tailored options to clean up your website’s database.

For example, users can easily organize comments, transients, and tables and create scheduled database clean-ups.

Pros

• Lighten & Delay Files

With WP Rocket, users can link, optimize, and delay CSS and JavaScript files.

• Lazy Loading

Lazy loading helps to improve response times by giving visitors the impression of fast loading images without actually downloading the image.

• Internationally Friendly

WP Rocket’s Content Delivery Network (CDN) works to reduce latency and increase availability for users worldwide.

• Add-Ons Available

WP Rocket offers add-ons like varnish caches; stores website in new visitor’s cache, Cloudflare integration

• WooCommerce Compatible

WP Rocket offers full compatibility and zero configuration for WooComerce and other popular eCommerce plugins.

Cons

• Incompatible with WordPress Multisite

For multiple sites, users have to activate WP Rocket individually, and a license is required per site for domain mapping.

• No Trial Period

Unfortunately, WP Rocket does not offer a free trial.

However, they do give a full refund within 14-days of purchasing.

• CDN not included

WP Rocket’s CDN feature is not included in the plugin.

CDN requires an additional monthly subscription per website.

Is WP Rocket Hard to Use?

No, WP Rocket is not hard to use.

The installation and configuration process takes less than three minutes.

Moreover, anyone can use this plugin, as it requires zero coding knowledge.

Upon integrating, the plugin will automatically begin performance caching.

Pricing & Plans

WP Rocket has three plans available: single, plus, and infinite.

The pricing for each plan is:

• Single (one website): $49/year
• Plus (three websites): $99/year
• Infinite (unlimited websites): $249/year

Upon purchasing a WP Rocket license, you’ll be granted full access to the features described above.

For pricing information, visit its plans and pricing page here.

Our Take

WP Rocket is a WordPress performance plugin that packages what would otherwise require downloading three to five plugins into one.

Within seconds, WP Rocket applies 80% of the leading web performance practices to your website.

2. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

The ShortPixel Image Optimizer is an image compressor and optimizer plugin for WordPress.

Runner Up

The ShortPixel Image Optimizer is an image compressor and optimizer plugin for WordPress.

Compressing, minimizing, and placing images into a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can boost SEO ranking, page load speed, and overall ranking.

Visit ShortPixel Image OptimizerRead ShortPixel Image Optimizer reviews

Compressing, minimizing, and placing images into a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can boost SEO ranking, page load speed, and overall ranking.

One of the wonderful things about ShortPixel Image Optimizer is that WordPress website owners can easily install the plugin and have it automatically optimize new images.

Our Rating

4.5 out of 5

Notable Features

• Various Optimization Choices

With ShortPixel you can upload JPEG, PNG, or GIF images for optimization.

When compressing an image, there are three compression options: lossy, glossy, and lossless.

• Convert Images

ShortPixel Image Optimizer makes it easy to convert JPEG, PNG, or GIF into WebP and AVIF.

• Great for Photographers

ShortPixel Image Optimizer’s glossy style image conversion optimizes images without bringing any quality down.

Pros

• Simple Installation

The plugin is downloadable with the click of a button.

• Demo Available and 100 free credits/month

The test site gives users time to familiarize themselves with the plugin and learn how to use the software correctly.

• Large Image File Compatibility

ShortPixel Image Optimizer can compress, convert, and optimize virtually any image or animation file.

• WP Retina 2x Compatible

According to ShortPixel’s blog post about optimized retina images, the retina makes images extremely crisp using double-resolution images

• 24/7 Support

The developers can quickly resolve problems related to the installation or utilization of the software.

Cons

• Monthly Credits Don’t Rollover

With ShortPixel Image Optimizer, the number of images purchased in the monthly packages doesn’t roll over to the next month – they expire in 30 days.

• Limited Payment Options

ShortPixel Image Optimizer only accepts PayPal and credit cards.

• Can’t Use on Localhost Installation

You cannot use the ShortPixel Image Optimizeron localhost installation.

Is the ShortPixel Image Optimizer Hard to Use?

The ShortPixel Image Optimizer is easy to use.

For WordPress website owners, the plugin lives in the management portal.

From there, the owner would begin optimizing with one click.

Pricing & Plans

ShortPixel Image Optimizer is available as a yearly subscription, month-to-month subscription, and a one-time purchase.

The plans and pricing for Short Pixel are:

One-time

• 100 images: $0/month
• 10,000 images: $9.99
• 30,000 images: $19.99

Monthly

• 100 images: $0/month
• 7,000 images: $4.99/month
• 16,000 images: $16.99/month

Yearly

• 100 images: $0/year
• 7,000 images: $47.90/year
• 16,000 images: $99.90/year

With the ShortPixel Image Optimizer, the one-time plan goes up to 500,000 images, while the yearly and monthly plans go up to 16 million.

For more pricing information, click here.

Our Take

The ShortPixel Image Optimizer is a fantastic WordPress plugin to increase SEO ranking by optimizing your site’s images.

Overall, with the free demo, you get 100 free images a month.

But with their flexible plans, there’s no harm in trying it out.

3. Imagify

Imagify is an image optimization tool that can compress your website with one click.

Also Great

From the WordPress dashboard, you can select specific images to optimize or automatically optimize every image.

Since Imagify is made by the creators of WP Rocket, these two WordPress performance plugins can be used in conjunction to further shrink the size of your images and increase web load time.

Visit ImagifyRead Imagify reviews

From the WordPress dashboard, you can select specific images to optimize or automatically optimize every image.

Since Imagify is made by the creators of WP Rocket, these two WordPress performance plugins can be used in conjunction to further shrink the size of your images and increase web load time.

Our Rating

4.4 out of 5

Notable Features

• Compress Common Image Files

With Imagify, you can optimize JPGs, PNGs, PDFs, and GIFs.

• Different Compression Levels

Imagify has three different compression levels: normal, aggressive, and ultra.

With the Imagify plugin, you can test out each compression level before choosing to automatically compress all images.

• WebP Conversion

Images in WebP increase the speed of your WordPress site and improve user experience and SEO ranking.

Pros

• Optimize on Imagify Server

With Imagify, images are optimized and compressed on the Imagify server instead of on the user’s machine.

• Simple Interface

The Imagify blends right into the WordPress platform.

• Image and Document Security

Images and animations optimized with Imagify are encrypted, allowing image data to remain confidential when passed from server to server.

• Try For Free

Imagify provides a 20MB quota every month, allowing prospective customers to try the plugin before investing in the software.

• Keep Optimized Images Forever

If you wanted to delete the plugin from WordPress, the images wouldn’t revert to how they were.

Moreover, original images are stored in the backup storage and optimized can instantly be reverted with one click.

Cons

• Charged an Additional $5 for Exceeding Paid Plan

With Imagify’s growth plan, exceeding 500MB results in additional charges

• Free Version Only Allows 20MB/month

20MB is about 200 images, making it a great plan for a small company or individual but not ideal for a company needing more.

Is the Imagify Image Optimizer Hard to Use?

No, Imagify is not hard to use. The user interface has a familiar appearance, and it is integrated within the WordPress software.

Pricing & Plans

When creating an account with Imagify, every user begins with a free account that consists of 20MB, which is about 200 images.

For paid plans, Imagify has two different types: Growth and Infinite.

• Growth (500MB): $4.99/month or $49/year
• Infinite (Unlimited MB): $9.99/month or 99/year

Our Take

Imagify is an image optimization and compression tool made by the creators of WP Rocket.

Users currently using WP Rocket can certainly install Imagify to increase the performance of their WordPress site.

Imagify can also excel by itself as a quick, free, and easy way to optimize and compress less than 200 images a month.

Should you need more than 20MB a month, its paid versions are flexible and require no commitment.

4. Query Monitor

Query Monitor is a WordPress developer tool.

With Query Monitor, users can conduct database queries, PHP errors, hooks, and actions, enqueued scripts and styles, theme template files, languages, and translations, rewrite rules, block editor blocks, HTTP API calls, and more.

Visit Query MonitorRead Query Monitor reviews

With Query Monitor, users can conduct database queries, PHP errors, hooks, and actions, enqueued scripts and styles, theme template files, languages, and translations, rewrite rules, block editor blocks, HTTP API calls, and more.

Our Rating

4.9 out of 5

Notable Features

• Database Queries

With Query Monitor, you can see what plugins, functions, or themes are causing slow database query performance.

From the plugin interface, you can see slow, duplicate, and error queries.

• Ajax

Ajax shows debugging information, and PHP and memory usage errors are sent to the developer console.

• Environment Information

Environment information shows memory limit, error reporting levels, and MySQLcaching and performance.

Pros

• Free to Use

Query Monitor is an open-source, free-to-use WordPress plugin.

• Identify Plugins Affecting your Performance

With Query Monitor, you can identify requests from a tool that are negatively affecting your WordPress site performance.

• Easier Troubleshooting

Query Monitor helps you manage query issues easier and efficiently.

• Privacy

Query Monitor doesn’t store your data or send it to a third party.

• Manage the Important Stuff

With Query Monitor, you can improve the performance of your website by identifying which plugins, themes, and other things are slowing down the query.  

Cons

• Slightly Impacts Page Generation and Memory Usage

Query Monitor is a plugin, so it is attached to WordPress, meaning it will impact page generation time.

• Not User Friendly

Query Monitor is a useful plugin for WordPress developers, but not for those with little to no knowledge about the developer side of website creation.

Is Query Monitor Hard to Use?

Yes, Query Monitor is hard to use, but not impossible.

For WordPress developers using the plugin, there are many online tutorials to help guide you through the application.

Pricing & Plans

Query Monitor is completely free to use, all that’s required is a download.

However, the developers do accept sponsorships from the GitHub Sponsors program.

To donate, visit here.

Our Take

Query Monitor is the ideal plugin for WordPress web developers wanting a comprehensive management and monitoring tool for database queries, debugging, and assessing issues.

It’s free to use and has rich resources available online to learn how to take advantage of its useful optimization features.

5. Complete Analytics Optimization Suite

Complete Analytics Optimization Suite (CAOS) is a fine-tuning website performance tool for users to host Google Analytics Javascript files by entering their tracking ID.

By using CAOS, your website’s load speed increases since visitors don’t grab the file from Google’s external server.

Complete Analytics Optimization Suite (CAOS) is a fine-tuning website performance tool for users to host Google Analytics Javascript files by entering their tracking ID.

By using CAOS, your website’s load speed increases since visitors don’t grab the file from Google’s external server.

Visit Complete Analytics Optimization SuiteRead Complete Analytics Optimization Suite reviews

Our Rating

4.7 out of 5

Notable Features

• Host Locally

With CAOS, you can host locally with analytics.js or gtag.js.

This means WordPress website owners can host Google Analytics locally.

• Avoid Ad Blockers

Files that are downloaded are renamed. Renaming files to random strings work to avoid ad blockers.

• Minimal Analytics Option

Minimal Google Analytics is a terrific option for website owners looking to examine pageviews rather than all information related to Google Analytics.

• Google Analytics V4

Google Analytics V4 is a modern version of Google Analytics with enhanced reporting and visualization capabilities, and CAOS is compatible with it.

Pros

• Adjusted Bounce Rate

With CAOS, you can navigate to the Optimize Analytics tab to change the value (in seconds) for actively monitoring your website’s Adjusted Bounce Rate.

• Fast

The plugin completes optimization fast and automatically.

• Light

CAOS is a lightweight plugin, meaning there’s no worry that the plugin is dramatically affecting your website’s performance.

• Compatible

CAOS is compatible with a host of Google Analytics plugins such as, but not limited to MonsterInsights (Pro), ExactMetrics, Site Kit by Google, WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration, and more.

• Site Speed Sample Rate

When adjusting settings with CAOs, there’s an option to adjust the site speed sample rate.

For low-popularity sites, changing settings to 50 or higher can drastically improve your site’s performance speed.

Cons

• Not User Friendly

It’s important to note that CAOS has many options to adjust Google Analytics settings, and you must know precisely what every option does and how to adjust it in your favor.

Without proper knowledge of analytics, changes made with the plugin could severely impact the ranking and performance of your site.

Is CAOS Hard to Use?

Yes, CAOS is somewhat difficult to use because it requires knowledge of specific Google Analytics. The plugin, however, is simple to navigate, as it integrates directly into your WordPress dashboard.

Luckily, CAOS has a user manual, so website owners can learn how to install and adjust settings.

Pricing & Plans

CAOS is completely free to use, all that’s required is a download.

Our Take

CAOS allows WordPress website owners to host analytics locally and works to increase the performance and loading speed of your WordPress website.

It is an ideal plugin for both non-developers wanting to adjust the basic settings and pros who understand the more in-depth analytics that the tool can monitor.

6. Disqus Conditional

Disqus Conditional is a JavaScript plugin that increases page loading speed with lazy loading, SHORTCODE, comment widgets, script disabling, and more. Disqus Conditional is free to use and is open source.

Disqus Conditional is a JavaScript plugin that increases page loading speed with lazy loading, SHORTCODE, comment widgets, script disabling, and more. Disqus Conditional is free to use and is open source.

Visit Disqus ConditionalRead Disqus Conditional reviews

WordPress users can create a Disqus Conditional account to access the knowledge base and community forum.

Our Rating

4 out of 5

Notable Features

• Lazy Load

With Disqus Conditional you can add lazy load to comments. The lazy load comes in three options: OnScroll, OnClick, and Normal.

• SEO Friendly

According to the developers of Disqus Conditional, their plugin is SEO friendly.

• Shortcode

With Disqus Conditional, you can add a shortcode or shortcut, to load comments anywhere. This makes adding comments to your website hassle-free.

Pros

• Easy to Install

Disqus Conditional has a simple installation process that can be completed from the WordPress portal.

• Less Spam

Since Disqus Conditional makes it so that commenters have to sign-up before commenting, spam comments become non-existent.

• Encourages Interaction

When comments come from real people who have logged in and are interested in the content on your website, the quality of comments increases.

• Increase Traffic

Less spam and interaction are some reasons Disqus Conditional can increase site traffic.

Cons

• Possible Weak Security

Disqus has had past security issues related to gaps in its code that could’ve been exploited by hackers.

However, these issues were back in 2013 and 2014, and they’ve since enhanced their security regarding password management.

• Sells User Data

Disqus Conditional can sell user data unless you manually opt out of it by withdrawing consent here.

Is Disqus Conditional Hard to Use?

No, Disqus Conditional has a familiar user interface that most WordPress users will easily be able to navigate.

Pricing & Plans

Disqus Conditional is completely free to use, all that’s required is a download.

Our Take

Disqus Conditional is a performance plugin that enhances the load speed and environment of your WordPress website’s comment section.

As a plugin, it has many advantages and there’s no harm in trying it out as it is completely free to use.

7. Lazy Load for Comments

Lazy Load for Comments is a WordPress default commenting system.

The plugin can improve page loading by preventing comments from loading when a page loads.

Lazy Load for Comments is a WordPress default commenting system.

The plugin can improve page loading by preventing comments from loading when a page loads.

Visit Lazy Load for CommentsRead Lazy Load for Comments reviews

Our Rating

4.5 out 5

Notable Features

• Load Comments Later

Rather than having comments on a webpage load immediately, you can use Lazy Load to have them appear later, such as when the user interacts.

• Three Lazy Load Options

Lazy Load offers three styles of comment loading: on scroll, on click, and no lazy load.

• Easy Installation

To install Lazy Load, open your WordPress interface, navigate to plugins, search for Lazy Load for Comments, and click install.

Pros

• User Friendly

The plugin is extremely user-friendly as it only needs to do one thing.

• Free

The Lazy Load plugin is completely free to use.

Cons

• Does one thing

Since the plugin only accomplishes one task, it’s likely WordPress website owners will need other plugins to fulfill the rest of their needs.

Is Lazy Load for Comments Hard to Use?

No, Lazy Load for Comments is not hard to use.

Pricing & Plans

Lazy Load is completely free to use, all that’s required is a download from their page.

Our Take

If you require a lazy loader plugin for comments, this is one of the best options to complete this task.

It’s free, easy to use, and performs an essential function for optimizing your WordPress site.

8. Perfmatters

Perfmatters is a lightweight, simple plugin for performance optimization of your WordPress website.

Perfmatters is a lightweight, simple plugin for performance optimization of your WordPress website.

This plugin can disable things that aren’t necessary, limit post revisions, and work harmoniously with other plugins and image compression tools to deliver the best possible performance speed for your website.

Visit PerfmattersRead Perfmatters reviews

This plugin can disable things that aren’t necessary, limit post revisions, and work harmoniously with other plugins and image compression tools to deliver the best possible performance speed for your website.

Our Rating

4.9 out 5

Notable Features

• Quick-toggle options

Some of the things you can toggle are limiting post revisions, changing autosave interval, disabling and tweaking API, disabling comments, and disabling Google Maps.

• Script manager

You can disable the scripts per post or page or the entire site.

• Database optimization

With Perfmatters, you can clean up your database by deleting revisions, old auto drafts, WordPress spam, and trash transients.

Pros

• Easy to Use

With Perfmatters Simple user interface toggle buttons, it is a very easy-to-use plugin.

• Affordable

An all-in-one WordPress plugin it is affordable.

• Lightweight

Perfmatters don’t take up much space at all and is unlikely to impact website load speed.

• Database Clean-up

With Perfmatters, you can schedule regular maintenance on your website’s database to ensure no optimization is lost over time.

Cons

• No free version or trial

Unfortunately, there is no free version or trial of Perfmatters.

• Messing with tools could harm your website

Inadequate knowledge regarding the function of each tool could result in a webpage dropping in ranks dramatically.

Is Perfmatters Hard to Use?

No, Perfmatters is not hard to use. However, while the interface is very user-friendly, understanding every tool and its effect may make it difficult to use at first.

Pricing & Plans

• Personal (one site): $24.95/year
• Business (three sites): $54.95/year
• Unlimited: $124.95/year

For more information on paid plans, visit their pricing page.

Our Take

Perfmatters is a professional WordPress performance optimization tool designed to target every aspect of your site to get it to the best speed possible

While there’s no free trial, their pricing is quite reasonable whether running a single site or many at once.

9. Autoptimize

The Autoptimize plugin can minify and cache scripts and styles, in CSS through the website, minimize HTML, lazy load images, and more.

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Autoptimize resizes everything so the elements become lightweight, thereby making your website run faster.

You can tailor Autoptimize to the specific needs of your site with their APIs.

Our Rating

4.5 out of 5

Notable Features

• JavaScript

Autoptimize can shrink JavaScript, combine Java and CSS files, exclude scripts, and remove unused Java files.

• CSS Options

Autoptimize does the same optimizations as CSS.

• HTML

With HTML, Autoptimize will minimize it to reduce white space and the overall size of the page.

Pros

• Increase Load Speed

Minifying scripts, styles, and other things make a webpage extremely light, allowing it to load faster.

• Simple Installation

Autoptimize can be found in the WordPress interface by navigating to plugins to install.

• Optimize Most Common Programming Languages

Autoptimize deals with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

Cons

• No database optimization, browser caching, or page caching.

Is Autoptimize Hard to Use?

No, Autoptimize is not hard to use.

The interface is fairly simple with buttons that you can toggle on and off.

Pricing & Plans

• Free to Download at WordPress Dashboard.

Our Take

Autoptimize is a great tool to improve the performance of your website, so if that’s what you need then use Autoptimize.

It’s free and open source, meaning there’s a large community of users who will be there to help if you have any questions about using the tool.

10. WP Sweep

WP Sweep is a newer plugin that cleans drafts, revisions, and meta from your website.

Clearing these items from your WordPress site with this optimization plugin will strengthen its performance.

WP Sweep is a newer plugin that cleans drafts, revisions, and meta from your website.

Clearing these items from your WordPress site with this optimization plugin will strengthen its performance.

Visit WP SweepRead WP Sweep reviews

Users have found that it could pick up issues that the bigger plugins would miss, making it a must-try.

Our Rating

4.0 out of 5

Notable Features

• Clean revision, comments, and meta

WP Sweep will ‘sweep’ revisions, comments, and meta by grouping them on the interface and providing you an option to sweep.

There’s also the choice to option sweep, which empties the transient options, reducing the database memory even more.

• Easy Install

WP Sweep is easy to install through the WordPress interface.

Pros

• Easy to Use: WP sweep is free to download and use.
• Automatic Organization: WP Sweep automatically organizes unused files, images, and data into separate categories.

Cons

• Newer plugin

With newer plugins, it may not be as stable as older ones, as the newer ones may encounter unanticipated issues.

Is WP Sweep Hard to Use?

No, WP Sweep isn’t hard to use. However, there is likely a learning curve to learn how to navigate the software.

Pricing & Plans

WP is completely free to use, all that’s required is a download from the WP plugins page.

Our Take

Use WP Sweep to clean the clutter in your website and obtain the best performance possible.

Final Thoughts

The winner of the ten best WordPress performance plugins for 2022 is WP Rocket with Perfmatters coming in close.

These plugins offer various solutions to maximize website performance rather than being a single plugin with one purpose.

Moreover, both plugins cover one or more of the four issues that slow WordPress loading and performance.

If you find your site loading sluggishly for unknown reasons, you should try using the performance plugins on our roundup.

Many are free, while others offer paid plans with potent functions.

Are you even sure your posts are “awesome?”

Maybe there are technical issues you need to address so people can view your blog?

If you’re not sure what the issue is, then you need to conduct a blog audit.

By auditing your blog using different variables, you can identify the problems why your blog is performing under expectations.

We’ve talked about content audits before, but now we’re diving into the technical details of a website audit.

In this post, you will learn how to do a blog audit correctly by identifying the factors you need to measure and the tools you must use.

The five most critical blog audit factors

A blog audit is a very important task you need to do regularly.

You don’t have to audit your blog every day – once every 6-12 months should suffice.

Think of a blog audit as an annual or bi-annual visit to your physician.

Your doctor will check if your body is in tip-top shape and what you need to do and take to improve your performance.

The same applies to a blog audit.

You analyze the best-performing pages and why that’s the case.

You also check areas you need to work on so you can generate more traffic and revenue.

Below are factors you need to keep a watchful eye on when auditing your blog.

1. Branding

Your branding governs the blog posts you publish and the design you have on it.

Taking all branding variables into consideration, you need to ensure that everything in your blog observes your branding guidelines.

The colors you use must be consistent on all pages of your blog.

The same goes with the style, font (face and size), and even your logo.

A comprehensive brand audit may be too overbearing if you have a small blog.

For starters, you can check your blog’s Google Analytics data for the following metrics:

• Dwell time – The average time of visitors in all your site pages. There are lots of variables that account to how long your visitors stayed on your site. From a branding perspective, your blog’s appearance and look may play a huge part into the visitor’s length of stay.
• Bounce rate – The average percent of people who visited your blog and left without visiting another page.
• Traffic sources – The sites that referred traffic to your blog. You will see here different sources such as Google search, social media (Facebook, Twitter, and others) and direct traffic (people who typed your blog’s URL on their browsers).

As mentioned, these variables are not fully indicative of your blog’s performance.

It’s possible that your content played just as huge a part in the figures from these factors (more on this later).

However, these provide relevant data to help you assess your blog’s brand.

You may try changing colors, fonts, themes, and logo designs to see if your metrics improve.

For example, your dwell may increase if you mix up your colors.

Try to make gradual changes and see how it affects the overall performance of your blog.

2. Basic pages (about, terms of services, privacy policy, etc.)

One page every blog needs to have is the About Page.

This is where you introduce what your blog is about to your audience.

Some talk about who they are and the reason they blog on their About Pages.

However, as one of the most visited pages of any site or blog, you need to write more than that on the page.

If your About Page isn’t drawing enough traffic and has a short dwell time, then you must add calls to action on this page to increase its engagement rate.

Below are elements you can add on this page:

• a sign-up form to your email list
• links to your social media profiles they can follow
• a feed to your latest blog posts
• mission statement and blogging goals

Again, make the changes gradually and not add all elements at once.

Doing so allows you to scale the changes and make informed decisions after auditing your blog again.

Other pages you need to edit or set up are the Privacy Policy and Terms of Services.

With the advent of GDPR, websites and blogs need to update these pages so they build trust with their audience and identify the information you’re collecting from visitors.

If you don’t have these pages yet, get one from iGetTerms.io.

3. Building an email list

Getting more people to join your email list is a great way to build an engaged blog readership.

Sending them periodical emails about your latest posts or just asking them questions will go a long way.

However, the real challenge is getting more email subscribers to your list.

It’s not as simple as adding sign-up forms here on there on your blog.

You need to place them at the right place and have them appear at the right time on your blog to build your email list quickly.

You also need to offer lead magnets to give them an incentive to join your list.

You can analyze the performance of your forms using your opt-in form or email marketing platform.

They will show you the conversion rate of the forms so you can make the changes and improve their performances.

4. SEO content

The content you publish determines how many visitors you will attract in a period.

Publishing the right content that falls in line with your branding and niche is a step towards the right direction.

The next step is developing and implementing a sustainable SEO campaign using valuable content that search spiders find irresistible.

To do this, you need to find the right keywords for your blog.

Unearthing keywords with high search volume and low competition is the holy grail of SEO.

There are plenty of tools out there to help you with this, but Ubersuggest is a great one that happens to be both powerful and free.

For more information on this tool, check out our Ubersuggest review that dives deeper into the details of how it works.

Once you’ve gathered the keywords, it’s time to assign them to pages you’ve already created or create new ones.

The goal is to create optimized content for your blog and get them to rank on the top page for their keyword.

Doing so will help you attract more traffic to your blog.

Your Google Analytics will show your blog posts with the most traffic.

If you haven’t optimized them yet for their right keywords, now’s the time to do so.

To help you keep track of your optimization process, use a tool like Yoast SEO (for WordPress users) or Webtexttool so you can measure how optimized your pages are.

Using the latter tool, you can also track their ranking on organic search and see whether they increase or decrease in the future.

5. Social media engagement

One way of driving more traffic and increase engagement on your blog is encourage readers to share your post.

To make this happen, you must make sharing your posts easier for readers.

Installing social media buttons that appear on every post will help tremendously.

Once readers click on the button, your blog will prompt them to their social media of choice with the title and the URL of the post ready for sharing.

Tools like Sumo and ShareThis allows you to build and customize the buttons that will appear on each page.

You can then monitor the number of shares each post generates to see your most popular posts on social media.

Using this information, you must take care of these engaging posts of yours by updating them regularly and reshaping them again to your network.

How about you: do you have other variables you measure in your blog audit?

Comment below and share them to other readers!