Ever feel your website may be slowing down or is feeling relatively unresponsive? Well, we got you.
In this article, we are discovering the best WordPress Plugins developed to optimize your WordPress based website. We will cover image optimization, responsiveness optimization, cache & much more.
Table of Contents
WP Rocket is the go-to for all optimization in one, with its extensive toolset implemented within a click of a button. Due to its simplistic interface, powerful tool and easy integration, it is no wonder it’s one of the most popular options for optimizing WordPress websites.
The features it possesses are beyond extensive such include:
- A very user-friendly, simplistic interface.
- Effortless & minimal changes required for speed improvement tweaking.
- Can shrink & delete unneeded CSS, HTML & JavaScript coding to provide the same result.
- It provides page caching.
- Optimizes images that are lazy to load.
- Optimizes databases & keeps data integrity.
- Includes CDN integration.
- Allows for Google Analytics integration.
- It features a rollback feature in case of errors or malfunction.
- Has a setting to delay JavaScript execution timing.
It has the features and capability to justify its pricing at $59 while being a little on the dearer side of plugins.
Another all-in-one optimization tool that is extensive in features. Their application developers made it even simpler to use than WP Rocket is. With a slider bar, you adjust according to how aggressive you want optimizations to be.
This plugin features the same features are WP Rocket but with added benefits such as:
- Saving & uploading images in “Next-Gen” file types like SVG.
- Providing all optimizations on their server rather than your file hosting server making your server responsive & optimized at all times to its max capabilities.
- Automation in the optimization of webpages.
- Supports not only WordPress but multiple CMS
NitroPack also comes with the benefit of having a limited functionality free starter pack and also offering a paid version. A great way to try NitroPack out to see if it is what you needed.
As the title states, Cache Enabler is a cache-based plugin that helps optimize your website’s stored cache settings.
It is a straightforward, lightweight plugin which has the following features & options to help your website become as optimized as possible:
- A Simple setup process.
- A “One Click” to clear all cache option.
- Allows for the website cache to be set to custom standards & settings.
- Allows for expiration dates to be set.
This free, lightweight optimizer is no harm to have on any WordPress website, which helps cache optimization.
For when bloat is existent on a website, Perfmatters is a must for optimization. Perfmatters essentially is an optimization plugin tool that removes all bloat off a website to optimize its response times & rates.
It also comes with a script manager, which helps control scripting on the website to make it not only secure against Cross Scripting (XSS) attacks but allows for total control of scripts running. Perfmatters also has an extensive features list which includes:
- Disabling of emojis.
- Disabling of embeds.
- It can help remove query strings & jQuery migrations.
- Can help remove RSD links, short links, RSS feeds, RSS feed links, REST API links, and WordPress version numbers.
- It can disable scripts on specific pages, scripts with Regex, disable password strength meters, self-pingbacks, the WordPress Heart Back API, and any WooCommerce features.
- It can connect, fetch DNS beforehand & change autosave intervals.
- Provide local analytics.
- Disable Google fonts.
With its extensive & comprehensive list of features, Perfmatters, as seen, can remove or optimize the entire website based on WordPress, rather than 80 or 90% of it.
TinyPNG
Now we come to an image only optimization tool. TinyPNG provides the website with quick & easy image optimization, removing most of the bloat & lazy loading images.
It replaces these images with PNG files that are optimized for web view, limiting their size while retaining the image’s quality.
OMGF | Hosting Google Fonts Local
OMGF is a vital tool for optimizing websites as most websites contain 60-70% of its content as text types. It provides the Google font types to be downloaded locally to reduce load times for the website overall. Since the fonts are downloaded locally, accessing them from the server is much faster than continually downloading & loading them upon request. It also helps solve the errors which Google fonts can throw at times of loading.
AMP for WP
AMP is a tool for WordPress which allows for mobile website optimizations. Did you know that you access websites via mobile rather than conventional PCs or Laptops due to convenience most of the time? Shocker right?
It is no wonder AMP came up on this list. It speeds up & makes websites with mobile views much more responsive. However, we should mention that it does delete & strip the website of some elements, so use with precaution.
Query Monitor
For those who want to do the nitty-gritty work on your website, Query Monitor is a powerful tool that displays which plugins or elements on the website lag & take the longest to load. While it displays all load times for all elements on the webpage, it makes it easy to identify which one is bogging the website down.
Wrap Up
Web page optimization has never been easier with WordPress plugins readily available for all sorts of optimizations. For ease, the all-in-one options provide all optimization tools required for changes to occur, these may be more applicable. However, every plugin featured on this list will help reduce clutter, bogging, lag & improve any WordPress website’s responsiveness & reliability.
Big Kitty Labs is one of the leading software development companies in Columbus Ohio that has been developing applications, websites, and software for over 14 years. Contact us for free discovery and consultation on your next project!
