Top 20 Best Plugins to instantly increase the speed of your WordPress website

Speed of the WordPress website holds key importance! Especially, after the Google search update of 2021, wherein Google introduced Core Web Vitals (CWC).

Top 20 Best Plugins to instantly increase the speed of your WordPress website


Speed of the WordPress website holds key importance! Especially, after the Google search update of 2021, wherein Google introduced Core Web Vitals (CWC). Therefore, it is essential for success that pages of your websites load quickly, failing which will result in loss of ranking on search pages. Hence, you must ensure speed performance optimization of your website. However, first, you need to understand the main factors that determine the speed of your WordPress website. So, let’s understand it quickly.

Main factors that conclude the speed of WordPress Website

Following are the main factors that will impact the page load times of your WordPress website.

  • Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Caching
  • Number of HTTP requests
  • GZIP compression
  • JavaScript and CSS optimization
  • Image compression
  • WordPress HeartBeat API
  • Database Optimization

All of the above factors, except the first factor, can be optimized with the help of the following WordPress performance plugins. So, let’s dive straight into it and check these plugins.     

WP Rocket

It is one of the most popular plugins to increase the speed of your website. The biggest benefit of this plugin is its multi-dimensional approach to WordPress optimization despite it being a caching plugin. WP Rocket is like a one-man army. It can take care of various factors effortlessly. If you install WP Rocket, you don’t need to have separate plugins for database optimization, CSS minimization, caching, JavaScript, image lazy load, etc. In this way, WP Rocket is your one-stop solution for various factors.

Asset CleanUp Speed Booster Plugin

This works wonders, especially with scripts and CSS. Asset CleanUp plugin works along with caching plugin to decrease page load times. It can decrease the page loading times by handling the unnecessary JavaScript and CSS that is loaded on every page of your website despite no use. Therefore, you must use it along with caching plugin. All you have to do is take the help of tools like GTmetrix to identify JavaScript and CSS that is used only on particular pages. Once, it is done, use the Asset CleanUp plugin to disable unused scripts and CSS from specific pages. Bang! Your page speed is boosted.

Perfmatters

It is a premium WordPress plugin that offers premium quality services in terms of increasing the speed of your website.  It is very easy to use as compared to the above-mentioned Asset Cleanup plugin.  Furthermore, it takes only five minutes to install and configure it! Therefore, it is growing in popularity. Hence, I recommend you install and use it!

WP-Optimize

It works like magic. All you have to do is one click and it will optimize your database completely. However, that is not it! You can do much more with the help of this plugin. First of all, don’t use it once; use it according to a schedule because your database needs continuous cleaning. Therefore, keep using it after some time to ensure peak performance for your website.  However, if you are using WP Rocket then there is no need to install this plugin because WP Rocket will take care of its entire task for you.

Rocket Lazyload

This plugin is incredible when it comes to optimizing your image rendering. All of the images on the page start loading when a user starts it visits. It means that images are being loaded even if the visitor is leaving the website without viewing them. It consumes resources and decreases speed. Therefore, to optimize this process, you have to install the Rocket Lazyload plugin. However, if WP Rocket is already installed then there is no need for this plugin. You can simply open up this process in WP Rocket.  

Heartbeat Control

This plugin allows you to control the WordPress API as per your needs.  How it can do so? WordPress keeps communicating with browsers by using its HeartBeat API.  Therefore, when an admin or any other user Is logged into the WordPress admin, the API of WordPress contact browser every sixty seconds on the dashboard and every 15 seconds on post edit pages. It causes an unnecessary burden on the servers and the performance of the website. Therefore, you must use it to optimize the process. However, if you are using WP Rocket then there is no need for this plugin as WP Rocket can take care of all of its processes. 

Query Monitor

It is like a policeman who catches the burden of society. Query monitor identifies the consumption of resources by every plugin. It can do so by monitoring the queries made by each plugin and by checking the time taken to execute these queries. In this way, it finds plugins that are using more resources. Hence, you will be able to replace those plugins with light alternatives. However, the trick is that you can uninstall it after using it so it does not put a burden also.  

NitroPack

It is a complete Speed Optimization Platform instead of only a plugin for speed optimization. NitroPack works like magic, all you have to do is set its intensity of optimization. Once you add your website and install the connector plugin, it will start optimizing your site automatically. You will see wonderful things happening to your website shortly after it. NitroPack will optimize various cashing types, compression, image optimization, DNS prefetch to ensure increased speed of your website. On top of that, all of the optimizations are run on the servers of NitroPack instead of your host. So, it will save resources without utilizing extra resources.

WP-Fastest Cache

It is a free performance plugin that is used by over one million websites to optimize performance. Moreover, its premium version is also available with additional features. This plugin can be the best option for those who want comfort with all the requirements. It is ideal for this because some plugins are so basic and some are so advanced but this plugin is just perfect. On top of that, it is super easy to install and configure. All you have to do is install, activate, do the settings and save everything! It is that easy!   

Cache Enable

This plugin was launched by the team at KeyCDN with a vision to optimize cache. Therefore, they have done a lot of work to ensure the delivery of the best possible solution. Indeed, it is the best possible solution! It can be installed within minutes. Furthermore, it offers various features like setting cache expiry time and minification setup. Moreover, you can set cache behavior as well by setting options like clearing after new posts. Lastly, it is super easy to use it. All it takes is one simple click to clear the cache.   

WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is very popular in the WordPress community due to its utilities and remarkable performance. Till now, it has been downloaded by users more than 5.5 million times. Only this fact shows that it is admired by millions. Therefore, this plugin must be doing something incredible for the users. It is very easy to install as well. However, the biggest feature of WP Super Cache is that it supports multiple caching types like PHP, Legacy, and Mod_Rewriter. On top of that, it serves static HTML files as well.

W3 Total Cache

It is a complete caching solution for you and you would love it if you are an advanced user of plugins and optimization. It has a huge variety of options. Therefore, you can optimize it according to your specific needs. Moreover, it provides support for Cloudflare and other CDN services. However, it is ideal for advanced users as installing it is not easy due to its countless options and features. On top of that, removing it is also a tricky path. So, choose it only if you know how to handle it properly.   

WP Super Minify

WP Super Minify is incredibility to the point and easy to use free performance optimization plugin. The basic idea behind this plugin was to combine JS, HTML, and CSS files to ensure that these are compressed and served to visitors. Hence, the goal was to reduce website loading times by serving compressed files. However, you must ensure caution in using this type of plugin as it might result in conflict among plugins. The result of the conflict will be the errors on the website and that is the last thing you would want. So, use it wisely.  

WP Smush it

WP Smush.it is a free plugin that is maintained by WPMU DEV and it was based on Yahoo Smush.it service. This plugin is a good option to optimize images as it removes unnecessary bytes from image files. It is worth noting that these kinds of plugins usually use lossy formats which degrade quality. However, that is not the case with this plugin. It ensures that the quality is not damaged while optimizing the images. Hence, use this plugin if you want to strip un-used colors from images.

WP Hosting Performance Check

Your website is running on the hosting services. Therefore, you must know the performance of your hosting to ensure that the speed of your website is optimized correctly or is there any server issue. In this situation, WP Hosting Performance Check is a super-amazing plugin that will help you to optimize your website server to increase the speed of your website. This plugin not only shows the performance of the server but also shows the slowest of pages of the website. In this way, you will be able to pinpoint the problems on those pages.

Autoptimize

Autoptimize is the best plugin if you want to combine CSS and JavaScript to ensure an increase in the speed of your website. It works better than most of the cache plugins because it provides more customizations than the cache plugins. Cache plugins usually don't allow full control of how JS/CSS files are optimized but Autoptimize gives you full control to do so. However, take caution while combining CSS, JS, and Images files for optimization purposes as it might conflict in plugins.  

ShortPixel

ShortPixel is a popular image optimization plugin that allows you to compress images and serve them from a CDN. Moreover, it converts images to WebP to ensure further optimization of your website speed. On top of that, it provides a solution for converting media files as it can convert PNG files into JPG files. So, install this plugin if you want basic image optimization.

RapidLoad

RapidLoad is a remarkable plugin that removes unused CSS from your website without complications. It is a premium plugin and it works like magic. Furthermore, it is super easy to install and use this plugin. All you have to do is click on the install button and it will lead you to the RapidLoad tab in Autoptimize settings. I loved its comfort and easy-to-use interface and I admire Frank from Autoptimize for authoring this remarkable plugin. It does the size reduction of each post to improve the speed of your website.   

Flying Pages

Flying pages is a remarkable plugin by Gijo Varghese to increase the website loading speed. Remember the “preload links” option of the WP Rocket? It does the same to increase the speed of page loading. It works like magic! When a user hovers over a link, this plugin ensures that the required page is preloaded so that it can be instantly loaded when the user clicks on the page. However, it can be a double-edged sword if a lot of users do not open the link then it will cause an unnecessary burden.  

GTMetrix for WordPress

The last WordPress plugin to increase the speed of your website is GTMetrix for WordPress! Remember, it does not directly optimize the speed and performance of your WordPress website. Rather, it does a better job as it provides reports to you! This plugin monitors load times and page speed and sends you a report directly to your WordPress dashboard. In this way, you can be aware of any fall in your speed or performance. So, if you forget to check the indicators then install them and you will be amazed by its assistance.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, all of these plugins are remarkable. However, you must use the right combination of plugins to optimize your website speed. Remember! Your goal is to optimize the speed with the help of the minimum possible plugins because more plugins mean more load on the website. So, choose wisely!

About Author

Hameed Aslam

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Hameed Aslam is a website design and development expert, as well as an SEO and content strategist. He is the founder of DCreato and many other online ventures. Hameed's skills with web design, development, SEO, and content marketing have helped him achieve success in online business. He loves to help others learn about these topics so that they can also be successful online.

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