When was the last time you ran a PageSpeed Insights test? Well, if you haven’t in recent times, you should go for it now to check how well your website is performing. Once you take the test, you’ll come across a recommendation stating, “Reduce initial server response time.” In other words, it also means reducing your site’s time to first byte (TTFB).
TTFB is the time it takes a browser to establish a connection with the server and begin downloading a web page’s content. Therefore, the better your TTFB, the better your site’s performance will be.
Why Should You Reduce TTFB?
According to Google, “speed equals revenue”! Users tend to leave sites that take too much time to load. If your site is taking more than 3 seconds to load, you’ve got a reason for that high bounce rate in analytics.
High bounce rates reflect a negative user experience. In addition, this will also hurt your SEO, and you’ll witness a drop in your rankings. Google always gives preference to websites offering a better user experience.
To be precise, TTFB is crucial for your website. If you plan to work on WordPress speed optimization of your website, TTFB is where you should start. Here are a few ways to reduce TTFB on WordPress.
How to Reduce Server Response Times?
1. Optimize Your Images
Images play a significant role in slowing down a page’s speed. If your pictures are too big, then eventually, the size of the page increases. Previously, JPG and PNG format images were used. Of the two, JPG was considered the better option for those who were more focused on speed as it loads faster and is better compressed.
However, currently, WebP is the best format for WordPress sites. In fact, Google also recommends webmasters to use WebP over other image formats. WebP is supported in Opera browser, Edge, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and many other tools.
- Use Caching
One of the easiest and most common methods to improve TTFB is to set up caching on your WordPress website. Caching helps reduce server processing time and TTFB. You can check with your hosting provider what they offer in this matter.
On the other hand, you can utilize a WP plugin to cache pages on your site. This will help pages load faster for those visitors who return to your website. This is an effortless strategy, as all you have to do is install and enable the plugin. After that, the plugin will do the job for you.
- Avoid heavy and unused plugins
If you are a newbie in the WordPress community, don’t install every other plugin that crosses your sight. Installing too many plugins will put a load on your server, increasing the time it takes to load a page. If you have any plugin that is too big and not useful, you should uninstall it immediately.
On the other hand, regularly check for updates on your plugins. Your website’s performance may be hurt by outdated and free plugins. If you see a plugin that is of no use, uninstall it immediately to reduce your site’s load.
- Database Optimization
Do you have the habit of running regular cleanups of your website’s database? If not, this could be the reason why your website is underperforming. Your database isn’t optimized if it contains too much data like trash, temporary files created by plugins, comments, and revisions. You need to optimize your database in order to achieve the best performance.
- Use the Latest Version of PHP
PHP 7+ is credible to handle around 50% more requests per second. This version of PHP will have a strong impact on your website’s speed. If you’re still using PHP 5.6, it’s high time you upgraded to the latest version.
- 404 errors
Have you checked how many users visit your 404 pages? Well, if none, then you are in luck. However, if this page has traffic, you need to get rid of it. 404 errors occur when users request a page that doesn’t exist. Such requests consume your server’s resources. Also, this will slow down your server if there are too many requests.
There are many tools and plugins available that detect all 404 pages. Or, you can always use the Google Search Console to inspect all errors present on your website.
- Keeping Everything Updated
New updates to anything you use usually bring performance enhancements. For example, WordPress 6.0 comes with many new features that impact your site’s performance and help you offer a better experience to your users.
Similarly, keeping your plugins and themes updated is crucial because new patches often include performance enhancers. In addition, it is considered best practice to keep the plugins and themes you use. To reduce the load on your server, free up any unused space. Even though this strategy may not seem to make sense, it will speed up your website and decrease the time to first byte (TTFB).
- Choose a reliable Managed hosting provider
This is one of the most essential points. Usually, those who are new to web development go for cheap hosting providers to save a couple of dollars. However, such hosting providers have slow servers, which eventually hurt both the speed of the website and the user experience. You need to check before finalizing a hosting provider properly.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you should step out of your budget and go for the most expensive service provider. In order to find the best hosting provider within your budget, you must go through customer reviews of a few hand-picked providers. A service provider with optimized cloud servers is an ideal option for you as it will help your website perform better. Also, an excellent hosting service provider has exceptional support. If you ever get stuck, their support team will be available to provide you with assistance.
It’s also vital that you are aware of where your host’s servers are located. Choose a service with servers closer to your physical location. For example, if you are operating your website from Australia, the smart move will be to trust a service with servers in this country. However, if you go for a hosting provider with USA servers, this will impact your website’s speed.
Final Words
As mentioned above, a regular user will expect your page to load within 3 seconds. If you are anywhere above this benchmark, you’ll see a rise in your bounce rate. This will result in a loss of both revenue and traffic. Therefore, we recommend that you follow all the tips we have mentioned above to reduce your TTFB. Once you optimize the server response times of your WordPress website, you’ll see a rise in traffic and revenue and have better chances of getting ranked higher on top search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
