One problem many WordPress webmasters run into is site loading times. This isn’t because there’s something particular or inherently slow about WordPress – after all, some of the biggest and fastest sites in the world are run using WordPress; often there are speed problems for a combination of reasons:

• many WordPress sites are run on very cheap shared hosting
• many WordPress sites use poorly coded themes
• many WordPress sites overuse plugins – sometimes conflicting plugins at that.

There are lots of tips and tricks to speeding up your WordPress site, many of which relate to setting up effective caching / cdn etc, which are useful if you’re serious about speeding up your site, but one simple tip could very quickly have speed results for you. Check your installed plugins for bottlenecks.

Use P3 – a Free plugin

P3  – Plugin Performance Profiler is a handy free plugin that you can install to check the effect that your installed plugins have on your website.  Developed by GoDaddy, it ses the canvas element for drawing charts and requires requires Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, or IE9 or later. Once you’ve installed it you can go into the plugins menu and you’ll see a ‘scan now’ button. 

You’d be surprised how, having run the profiler, often one lumpily loading plugin can freeze up your whole site for seconds. Find a slow plugin via the profiler, and then weigh up whether you actually need that plugin – maybe you can find a more efficient way to do things, or simply drop that particular element of your site, shaving seconds off your loading time.

Don’t be afraid of plugins

Don’t take the wrong message from this, though. We’re not against plugins – far from it! Plug-ins are one of the best sides of WordPress, allowing people to add functionality quickly and easily, often benefitting from the work done by the community. Plugins are great – but the ease with which they can be chosen and installed, can lead to problems, not the least of which can be slow page loading times.

What we suggest, here at TMO, is that you think carefully before you install any plugin. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is the functionality provided by the plugin something that really gives value to my website visitors?
• What kind of reviews has the plugin you’re considering received? Has it been regularly updated?
• Are there any worrying support threads for the plugin – particularly relating to speed or site crashes

When you’re convinced by these, install your plugin and check how it affects your site loading. Run a check with Yslow or Pingdom, before and after the activation of the plugin.