WordPress is slow. It’s a common complaint from website owners who struggle with sluggish load times. But in reality, it’s often not WordPress that’s the problem, but rather poor development practices.
WordPress powers over 43% of all websites globally and is one of the most flexible and powerful platforms available. Yet, when a WordPress built site underperforms, people often blame the platform itself, rather than the real culprits such as poorly coded themes, an overreliance on plugins, or bad hosting choices.
Let’s bust this myth once and for all that WordPress isn’t inherently slow, but bad development practices can make it feel that way.
WordPress is Scalable and Fast When Done Right
It’s crucial to understand that WordPress itself is not slow. It’s a robust platform that powers some of the internet’s largest websites. If WordPress were the issue, these high-traffic websites wouldn’t choose it.
The real reason some WordPress sites experience slow performance isn’t due to the platform, which is fast at its core. Instead, as you add more content and customizations, the site may require optimization to maintain speed and performance.
If you’re managing these changes yourself, without technical expertise, it’s easy to overlook important optimizations, which leads to poor site performance. Furthermore, if you have a developer handling the site and it still isn’t performing well, it may indicate that the developer lacks the necessary skills or experience to optimize WordPress effectively.
The difference between a fast-loading WordPress site and one that crawls can often be traced back to the quality of development.
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Examples of High-Performance WordPress Websites
To show just how well WordPress can perform, let’s look at some examples of popular websites using WordPress
TechCrunch – Estimated Monthly Visitors: Approximately 1.4 million.
TechCrunch is a leading technology news website that focuses on startups, gadgets, and Internet products.
Walt Disney – Estimated Monthly Visitors: Approximately 1 million.
The official website of The Walt Disney Company serves as a gateway to Disney’s vast portfolio of entertainment, including films, television shows, theme parks, and merchandise.
White House – Estimated Monthly Visitors: Approximately 10 million.
The official White House website is the digital home of the President of the United States. It is a high-traffic site, especially during times of political activity or major news events.
Sony Music – Estimated Monthly Visitors: Approximately 104k.
Sony Music is a global music company that represents a wide array of artists and music genres.
NASA – Estimated Monthly Visitors: Approximately 45 million.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website serves as the primary source of information about space exploration, scientific discoveries, and aeronautics research.
These websites demonstrate that WordPress can be exceptionally fast when optimized correctly. Their high traffic and dynamic content showcase the platform’s scalability and performance capabilities. So where’s the problem?
What Can Slow Down Your WordPress Website
The truth is, every website is unique, and there are many reasons why your WordPress site might be slow. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but poor coding practices, improper setups, and ineffective use of tools are common culprits. Here are a few more key factors that can slow down your website.
1. Heavy Themes
Heavy WordPress themes, characterized by excessive features, bloated code, and large image files, can significantly slow down your website. This can have a detrimental impact on overall website performance. Heavy themes often require more server resources, such as CPU, memory, and database usage. This can strain your server and lead to slower load times.
Poorly written or bloated code can make your website’s pages more complex to render, resulting in slower loading times. Themes with many unnecessary features can add unnecessary bloat and slow down your website.
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2. Too Many Plugins
Installing too many plugins on your WordPress website can significantly slow down its performance. Each plugin adds extra code, increases the number of HTTP requests, and may introduce new database queries or external API calls. This additional load puts a strain on your server, resulting in slower page load times and reduced overall responsiveness. Moreover, conflicts between plugins can aggravate the problem, causing unnecessary processing and delays. While plugins are useful for extending your site’s functionality, over-reliance on them without proper optimization can quickly lead to performance bottlenecks.
3. Bad Plugin Choices
Even if there aren’t too many plugins, using poorly coded or unmaintained ones can introduce inefficiencies that dramatically affect site performance. Poorly chosen plugins can significantly impact your WordPress website’s performance. These plugins, if not compatible with your theme and other plugins, can cause conflicts, consume excessive resources, and ultimately slow down your site’s loading time.
A poorly coded plugin might make inefficient database queries, execute unnecessary JavaScript. These actions can strain your server, leading to longer page load. Additionally, conflicts between plugins can cause errors and instability, further hindering your website’s performance.
Therefore, it’s crucial to carefully evaluate and select plugins that are well-maintained, compatible with your theme and other plugins, and optimized for performance.
4. Excessive Use of Font Files
Excessive use of font files can significantly slow down your WordPress website. When you incorporate multiple font files into your theme, your website needs to load and render each font separately. This can add unnecessary overhead and increase load times.
Additionally, using large font files can further impact performance. Larger font files take longer to download, which can delay the rendering of your website’s content.
Furthermore, using custom fonts that are not optimized for the web can also slow down your website. These fonts may require additional requests to external servers, which can add latency and delay page loading. To avoid this problem, it is good practice to limit the number of fonts on a website to 3 or a maximum of 4 font types. The general rule is that the fewer the better.
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5. Unoptimized Images
Unoptimized images can significantly slow down WordPress websites, leading to poor performance and a frustrating user experience. Each time a user visits a webpage, the browser must download all the images before rendering the page, and if these images are large, it can lead to longer loading times.
If a website uses high-resolution images that are several megabytes in size, this can increase the time it takes for the browser to fetch these files from the server. Users on slower internet connections may experience delays that cause them to abandon the site altogether. Moreover, excessive image sizes can strain server resources, especially if multiple users are accessing the site simultaneously, leading to increased server load and slower response times.
To avoid these issues, it’s essential to optimize images. Implementing lazy loading can also help improve performance by loading images only when they are visible in the user’s viewport, further enhancing loading times.
6. No Caching
Implementing no caching can significantly slow down your WordPress website. Caching is a technique that stores frequently accessed files locally on the user’s device, reducing the need to repeatedly fetch them from the origin server. This results in faster page load times and improved user experience.
When no caching is implemented, every time a user visits your website, the server has to generate the content from scratch, fetching data from the database, processing it, and then delivering it to the user. This happens even if the content has not changed since the last visit. As a result, the server experiences a higher load, especially during peak traffic, and the page loading time increases. By implementing caching, you store a static version of the page, allowing the server to serve pre-generated content to users much faster, reducing the overall load and speeding up page loads.
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7. Outdated WordPress Core, Themes, and Plugins
Outdated WordPress core, themes, and plugins can significantly slow down your website. As updates often include performance enhancements that improve speed and efficiency. By using an outdated core, your site misses out on these optimizations, leading to slower load times. Additionally, older themes and plugins may not be fully compatible with the latest version of WordPress, resulting in errors and inefficient code execution, which can further degrade your site’s speed and functionality.
Outdated versions can also increase resource usage; older versions may not utilize server resources effectively, leading to unnecessary load, particularly if multiple outdated plugins or themes are active. Therefore, regularly updating the WordPress core, themes, and plugins is crucial for maintaining optimal site performance, security, and compatibility with the latest web standards.
8. Ignoring Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals are critical for measuring user experience. These metrics consist of a set of measurements that Google uses to evaluate how well a web page performs from a user perspective, specifically focusing on important aspects of page speed. Core Web Vitals assess how quickly your site loads, how responsive it is to user input, and how stable the layout remains as the page loads.
The three primary Core Web Vitals metrics are
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This measures the perceived load time of the main content on the page, indicating how quickly users can view the most important elements.
- First Input Delay (FID): This metric measures the time it takes for a web page to respond to the first user interaction.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures the visual stability of the page, ensuring that elements do not unexpectedly shift around while the page is loading.
Poor Core Web Vitals can have significant negative consequences for your website. For instance, a high bounce rate may result if users leave quickly due to slow loading times or difficulties interacting with the page. Additionally, lower conversion rates are likely, as users are less inclined to make purchases or sign up when faced with a sluggish or poorly performing website. Furthermore, Google prioritizes sites with good Core Web Vitals in its search results, meaning that poor performance can negatively impact your search engine rankings.
To effectively monitor and improve Core Web Vitals, users should focus on the data provided in Google Search Console rather than relying solely on other page testing tools. Google Search Console offers real-world user data, known as field data, which reflects how actual visitors experience your site. In contrast, many page testing tools generate lab test reports that simulate performance in controlled environments, which may not accurately represent the diverse experiences of real users. While these lab results can be helpful for identifying potential issues, they may not capture the true performance bottlenecks that users face. By utilizing Google Search Console’s real user data, you gain a more reliable and comprehensive view, allowing you to address the core issues affecting your site’s speed and overall user experience effectively.
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These factors play a significant role in determining your website’s speed, but they are just a small part of a much larger set of factors that can influence performance. Achieving a fast and functional website requires a developer with the right knowledge, experience, and skills. A well-optimized site can improve user satisfaction, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions.
If you are attempting to manage your website independently without the necessary expertise, you may encounter various performance issues that can adversely affect user engagement and conversion rates. Therefore, investing in professional support not only helps you avoid common pitfalls but also keeps your website competitive.
Why Are There So Many Bad Developers?
The proliferation of bad or pseudo developers in the industry can largely be attributed to the growing popularity of WordPress. WordPress powers over 43% of websites on the internet, with more than 64,600 plugins and over 24,000 themes available. The abundance of these resources allows anyone to create a website easily using pre-built resources, even without extensive technical knowledge. This accessibility has drawn in many individuals who may lack the necessary expertise or experience in web development.
Some Common Reasons Why Bad WordPress Developers Are So Prevalent
1. Lack of Client Awareness
As the demand for WordPress development services has skyrocketed, there has been a corresponding rise in inexperienced and underqualified developers. These individuals typically offer their services at lower rates, which makes them attractive to cost-conscious clients looking to save money. Unfortunately, this emphasis on price over quality can lead to hiring developers who lack the essential skills and experience necessary to provide effective solutions.
Many of these pseudo developers possess limited knowledge and do not fully understand best practices or optimization strategies, resulting in subpar work that can negatively impact website performance. Additionally, many clients are not aware of the potential downsides of hiring these less experienced developers. They often prioritize short-term cost savings over the long-term benefits that come with investing in skilled professionals.
The real challenge is educating clients about the value of expertise in WordPress development. By understanding the importance of hiring qualified developers, clients can avoid the pitfalls of working with pseudo developers.
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2. Low Barriers to Entry
WordPress is designed to be user-friendly, making it relatively simple for anyone to set up a website. This accessibility attracts individuals with limited technical skills who may consider themselves developers after completing a few tutorials or using page builders.
With countless tutorials, forums, and community support, anyone can quickly learn the basics of WordPress. However, this often leads to a superficial understanding of the platform without mastering core principles.
3. No Certification
Many individuals label themselves as WordPress developers despite lacking formal training or extensive experience. They may have picked up a few skills here and there, but their knowledge often falls short in more complex situations.
There are no universal standards or certifications for WordPress developers, making it difficult to distinguish between skilled professionals and those with minimal expertise.
4. Over Reliance on Page Builders
Many developers lean heavily on page builders which allow them to create websites quickly. While these tools can produce visually appealing sites, they often lead to bloated code, poor performance, and lack of customization.
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5. Focus on Short-Term Results
Many bad developers prioritize delivering a project quickly rather than focusing on long-term quality and performance. This can lead to poor coding practices, a lack of optimization, and a disregard for best practices.
To attract clients, some developers offer low-cost services, which often leads to cutting corners. These developers may not invest the time or resources needed to ensure high-quality work.
6. Inconsistent Learning and Skill Development
Web development is increasing rapidly, and many developers fail to keep their skills updated. New technologies, coding practices, and performance optimization techniques are constantly emerging, and those who don’t adapt may fall behind.
How to Find Good WordPress Developers
1. Use Trusted Platforms
Codeable is an excellent platform for finding vetted WordPress developers. They thoroughly vet their developers, ensuring you connect with skilled professionals who meet high quality standards. This vetting process saves you significant time on searching, interviewing, and onboarding developers. You can focus on your project while having confidence in the expertise of the developers available through Codeable.
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2. Partnering with Agencies
Engaging with a WordPress or development agency can provide access to a diverse team of developers with various specialties. Agencies typically have established processes, quality control measures, and project management frameworks in place, leading to more consistent results. By working with an agency, you benefit from a collaborative environment where multiple experts can contribute to your project, ensuring that all aspects, from design to development, are handled professionally.
At Lime Street, we specialize in catering to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with a focus on providing expert WordPress development and support. Our retainer plans are designed to offer ongoing maintenance and performance optimization, giving you peace of mind that your website is in good hands.
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Conclusion
WordPress can be fast, flexible, and scalable, as proven by some of the largest websites in the world. If your WordPress site is slow, don’t blame the platform, look at the development behind it. Investing in a skilled developer ensures your site runs efficiently, loads quickly, and provides an optimal user experience.
