How To Speed Up WordPress with Caching and Database Optimization Techniques

Since Google started to pay close attention to website speed and how it improves the user search experience, it’s no wonder every blogger is looking for creative ways to tweak their website. Having a website that loads under 3 seconds is a great way to ensure valuable content gets in front of searchers quickly. The last thing you want is a user to leave your website because the page doesn’t load in sufficient time. Next, Google understands the importance of load time and they have built their reputation on providing the best information when users need it most. A slow loading site will hurt the user experience, hence jeopardizing Google’s reputation.

 

Let’s look at some back-end ways to speed up your website. We’ll be looking at the various

  • Caching techniques
  • Database techniques

Caching Techniques

Here are a few to pay close attention to, and no matter what WordPress plug-in you use, you should use these settings.

Page Caching –

Save dramatically generated HTML copies of your files that will be placed on your server. When a request is made, instead of loading new files, your server will display these generated ones only if NO changes have been made from the previous configuration.

Database Caching –

It’s a pretty lengthy process for MySQL to keep pulling requests from within the tables. As the website grows, the database will have more data to sort through, which takes enormous time. However, having database caching in place will ensure search queries are saved in local storage, which makes them easy to pull whenever the same searches are made.

Browser Caching –

This uses the concept that larger images like CSS and JavaScript don’t change once they’ve been configured so why NOT store these large files locally? It will reduce calls to the server, reducing overall load time, so make sure you configure this element within the plug-in settings. Both of the WordPress plug-ins listed below has an option to take advantage of browser caching.

Object Caching –

It’s hard to explain this concept, but it’s the most advanced type of caching and WordPress will control this aspect through a simple plug-in installation. For example, some of these commands include Caching API, Object Cache, and Transient API, etc. You don’t have to pay close attention to these caching commands because they are WordPress’ own internal protocols for increasing speed time. Installing a simple plug-in will automate this process.

How can you take advantage of these caching techniques?

  • WP Super Cache
  • WP Total Cache

Database Techniques

Using phpMyAdmin –

I never use to do this, but simply optimizing your tables from within the phpMyAdmin can definitely help improve load times. However, because you’re in the backend, I suggest you have experience working with phpMyAdmin because a wrong command can pretty much erase your entire website. Always create a backup and then start to optimize, which isn’t difficult as you select table and from drop down, click optimize.

Using a WordPress Plug-in –

Thanks to WordPress, you have several awesome plug-ins available to optimize your database. These plug-ins will connect to myPHPAdmin and tweak your database tables for you. Here are the two I recommend…

First, these plug-ins are FREE and unlike the caching plug-ins above, these will optimize your database tables, allowing for information to be retrieved much quicker.

Wrapping It Up…

It’s important to make use of these caching techniques because it’s a cost effective way to tweak your website speed. Many times, people will recommend hiring someone to compress the code and make tweaks, costing you hundreds of dollars. However, if you’re using WordPress, you have plug-ins that’ll streamline the entire process, which is amazing because they just need to be configured. Here’s what I recommend…

Start by installing the plug-ins, then head over to YouTube.com and type in the plug-in. You’ll find a handful of awesome videos walking you through the configuration process.

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