How to Increase Server Response Time for SSL WordPress Hosting
One of the most frustrating things about running a website is dealing with server response time. Regardless of whether you’re running a successful blog or business website, slow servers cost you money and damage your reputation. Knowing how to increase your server’s response time is more than just an academic exercise, it can help you improve your site’s performance and get more out of it. There are numerous reasons why your server might be slow, from your web host’s outdated software to too many requests or files. Hopefully, this article will shed some light on the various ways you can increase the speed of your WordPress-powered website.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
The first step to speeding up your WordPress-powered site is to use a content delivery network (CDN). A content delivery network is a group of servers that connect to your website and serve its content to users from all over the world. It acts as a kind of buffer between your visitors and your webserver, meaning content is delivered faster for everyone. The more sites that are connected to your CDN, the faster your content will appear for your visitors. The majority of web hosting companies provide free CDNs with their services, so you don’t have to spend a penny.
The convenience of using a CDN is that you don’t necessarily need to host your site on the same server as your blog. For instance, you could run a completely separate web server for your blog and store all your content on Amazon Web Services or another reputable web hosting provider. In an ideal world, your website would be hosted on a server that’s more than capable of handling the demand. However, in the real world, you need to make do with what you’ve got.
Reduce Your Site’s Requests
Every time a user visits your site, the server has to perform a number of tasks to ensure their visit is as smooth as possible. These include delivering graphics and formatting, serving up the content, and keeping track of the items the user has viewed. To reduce the number of requests your website makes to the server, perform various tasks asynchronously. This means that instead of immediately jumping to work on the next task, the server will start working on this task only after the current task is completed. If your site makes multiple requests to the server at the same time, it will overload the system and slow down the response time. To put it simply, make your site as lightweight as possible so that it doesn’t take up as much memory and processor time on the server. You can also use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow to monitor and improve the speed of your site.
Use a Content Optimizer
A content optimizer, or content strategist, as he is often known, is a person who takes content creation, from copy to design, and makes it easier for content creators to produce content that will engage with audiences. Essentially, a content strategy is all about making the process of creating content less stressful by taking out the grunt work. It isn’t enough to just create good content, you have to consider a variety of factors to get the most out of it (read more on how to become a content strategist).
One important feature that a content optimizer provides is a better conversion rate. When a visitor comes to your site, you want them to take some action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a newsletter, so that you can earn a commission. However, if the process of converting a visitor to a customer is too stressful, you’ll lose out on a potential sale. A content optimizer will make the conversion process as smooth as possible by taking all the hard work out of creating a strategy and leaving you with a well-thought-out plan that is bound to inspire confidence.
Reduce Image Server Calls
Images are one of the biggest factors that slow down the speed of your site. An image server call is a transaction that happens when an image is requested by the visitor. Your webhost needs to make a connection with the image server, which is often times located outside of your network. This is why the majority of your site’s speed issues are caused by the way images are displayed on the page. Instead of displaying images in the browser as your webhost intended, the browser requests the images and then displays them in a small popup. This is where most of the slowdown occurs.
You can improve the speed of your site by using a content delivery network to cache images on their servers. A CDN caches images in multiple locations, so even if a visitor requests an image that has already been cached by the network, the page will load much more quickly. Additionally, if the image isn’t available on the local server, the CDN will attempt to retrieve it from a remote location and cache it for future users. This process makes images much smaller in size, which lowers the load time and the number of requests your site makes to the image server. You don’t need to run your own image server, as your web host can handle all your site’s image needs for free.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network is a group of servers that connect to your website and serve its content to users from all over the world. It acts as a kind of buffer between your visitors and your webserver, meaning content is delivered faster for everyone. The more sites that are connected to your CDN, the faster your content will appear for your visitors. The convenience of using a CDN is that you don’t necessarily need to host your site on the same server as your blog. For instance, you could run a completely separate web server for your blog and store all your content on Amazon Web Services or another reputable web hosting provider. In an ideal world, your website would be hosted on a server that’s more than capable of handling the demand. However, in the real world, you need to make do with what you’ve got.
The first step to speeding up your WordPress-powered site is to use a content delivery network (CDN). A content delivery network is a group of servers that connect to your website and serve its content to users from all over the world. It acts as a kind of buffer between your visitors and your webserver, meaning content is delivered faster for everyone. The more sites that are connected to your CDN, the faster your content will appear for your visitors. The convenience of using a CDN is that you don’t necessarily need to host your site on the same server as your blog. For instance, you could run a completely separate web server for your blog and store all your content on Amazon Web Services or another reputable web hosting provider. In an ideal world, your website would be hosted on a server that’s more than capable of handling the demand. However, in the real world, you need to make do with what you’ve got.