Has your site been taken offline by your web hosting company because of abnormal WordPress resource consumption? If so then you're not the only one. This issue is pretty common these days and the main culprit in most cases is a faulty plugin or script. Site owners usually believe that a website can't overburden a web server unless it has a virus or malware in it but that's not true at all. Even a clean site can wreck a web server if not optimized thoroughly. Luckily it's really simple to reduce the resource usage of a WordPress website and make it more stable.
There are more than a few ways to optimize a WordPress website including:
- Decreasing visitors to your site
- Take steps to make your website less resource intensive
- Use a reliable dedicated server
Needless to say that you shouldn't try to limit the number of people who have access to your website. Doing so will not only hurt your profits but also your level of popularity. Also leasing a dedicated or cloud machine is not a practical alternative for every person. Dedicated servers may cost 100's of dollars each month and cloud systems are even more expensive. This leaves us with the second option i.e. optimizing your blog and lowering its resource consumption. Here are some ideas on how this can be accomplished:
Use a Cache plugin - Using a cache is the best way to reduce server load and keep a website running even during traffic spikes. A cache plugin creates a static versions of each page of your site which are is served to the visitors. Once a page has been saved in the cache it can be delivered almost instantly. If you are not already using a plugin cache then you should then you should install one immediately.
Keep Your Site Updated - The WordPress community is always looking for ways to make the system more efficient and less bandwidth intensive. Each new version comes with some key improvements. This is why you must always keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. Same is true for plugins and templates. If a plug-in has not been updated in a longtime, you should not make the mistake of installing it on your hosting server. It won't just increase bandwidth consumption but might also create critical security problems in the system.
Optimize theme in use - Optimizing a theme is really easy but it can make a huge difference. Themes that have a lot of fancy graphics and tons of eye candy often use up a lot of bandwidth. A simple and elegant theme is not only better for the performance of your site but it also looks more professional. If you want to optimize your existing theme then the first step is to compress its CSS and JavaScript files. There are dozens of CSS compression utilities that can help you out. If you don't want to do things manually then there are some plugins that do the compression automatically.
Tweak your database - WordPress stores all the website data in a MySQL database. Over time this database becomes overloaded with junk content like post revisions, unwanted drafts, junk comments and so on. You need to get rid of all this junk at regular intervals. Just log into your cPanel, select PHP My Admin and delete anything that isn't required. But before making any modifications remember to take a complete backup of your data.
Other quick tips on how to reduce WordPress resource usage include:
- If your site has some old plugins that you don't need anymore, you should delete them or atleast deactivate them.
- Use Google search rather than the default WordPress search.
- After updating to WordPress' newest version, always perform compatibility tests with the site's plugins and delete all that are incompatible.
If you wish to save money on hosting and get good rankings then you must follow the guidelines provided in this post.
There are more than a few ways to optimize a WordPress website including:
- Decreasing visitors to your site
- Take steps to make your website less resource intensive
- Use a reliable dedicated server
Needless to say that you shouldn't try to limit the number of people who have access to your website. Doing so will not only hurt your profits but also your level of popularity. Also leasing a dedicated or cloud machine is not a practical alternative for every person. Dedicated servers may cost 100's of dollars each month and cloud systems are even more expensive. This leaves us with the second option i.e. optimizing your blog and lowering its resource consumption. Here are some ideas on how this can be accomplished:
Use a Cache plugin - Using a cache is the best way to reduce server load and keep a website running even during traffic spikes. A cache plugin creates a static versions of each page of your site which are is served to the visitors. Once a page has been saved in the cache it can be delivered almost instantly. If you are not already using a plugin cache then you should then you should install one immediately.
Keep Your Site Updated - The WordPress community is always looking for ways to make the system more efficient and less bandwidth intensive. Each new version comes with some key improvements. This is why you must always keep your WordPress installation up-to-date. Same is true for plugins and templates. If a plug-in has not been updated in a longtime, you should not make the mistake of installing it on your hosting server. It won't just increase bandwidth consumption but might also create critical security problems in the system.
Optimize theme in use - Optimizing a theme is really easy but it can make a huge difference. Themes that have a lot of fancy graphics and tons of eye candy often use up a lot of bandwidth. A simple and elegant theme is not only better for the performance of your site but it also looks more professional. If you want to optimize your existing theme then the first step is to compress its CSS and JavaScript files. There are dozens of CSS compression utilities that can help you out. If you don't want to do things manually then there are some plugins that do the compression automatically.
Tweak your database - WordPress stores all the website data in a MySQL database. Over time this database becomes overloaded with junk content like post revisions, unwanted drafts, junk comments and so on. You need to get rid of all this junk at regular intervals. Just log into your cPanel, select PHP My Admin and delete anything that isn't required. But before making any modifications remember to take a complete backup of your data.
Other quick tips on how to reduce WordPress resource usage include:
- If your site has some old plugins that you don't need anymore, you should delete them or atleast deactivate them.
- Use Google search rather than the default WordPress search.
- After updating to WordPress' newest version, always perform compatibility tests with the site's plugins and delete all that are incompatible.
If you wish to save money on hosting and get good rankings then you must follow the guidelines provided in this post.
About the Author:
Do you wish to make your site blazing fast? If yes then you should purchase optimized wordpress themes and templates. Visit my site for a long list of free themes.
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