Why do WordPress websites become slow?

Many people don't ask themselves until far too late why their website is too slow. You need to understand the basics presented here in order to optimize WordPress effectively. If your WordPress is slow, this can have fatal consequences for your online business: Fast websites are generally more popular, generate better interaction and ultimately higher conversions and sales.

But why do WordPress websites become slow in the first place? What are the causes of high loading times and how can they be combated?

What makes WordPress slow

A website written by hand is based on HTML. It is built once and is then "surfable". WordPress, on the other hand, dynamically assembles websites each time they are called up. This has many advantages, especially if your website is updated frequently, but comes at the expense of performance. This is because the website has to be constantly recalculated.

This is why the loading time for WordPress is particularly important: too many plugins or a poor theme can lead to massive drops in performance. In principle, there are two ways to tackle this problem: By increasing the performance potential of your own website, i.e. upgrading your server and choosing the right host, and by optimizing your website. In the best case scenario, these two steps naturally go hand in hand.

Too many server requests with too large requested files make WordPress slow

But how does the mechanism that makes WordPress slow work? The decisive factor is the communication between browser and server.

If a website is to be created, the browser sends a request to the server. This in turn retrieves the necessary information from the WordPress PHP files, among other things. The web server translates these PHP files into browser-readable HTML code using the so-called PHP interpreter. The browser's request to the server is also referred to as an HTTP request. In addition to the HTML code, each image, animation, etc. also generates an HTTP request. The more of these requests have to be made and the larger the data packets transmitted, the longer the website takes to load.

This means that WordPress optimization is based on two main processes: reducing the number of requests and compressing the data to be transported.

Plugins, the theme, images and animations drive up requests

So what increases the number of such "harmful" HTTP requests? Basically, a lack of website concept and uncompressed data. Because if you are not clear about which functionalities and which design your website really needs in order to function, you run the risk of overloading your website with functions and content.

Functions of your website are either part of the theme or are integrated via plugins. Both significantly increase the number of HTTP requests and make WordPress slow. A clear functional concept for your website and constant tidying up in the backend as well as updating plugins and themes help to keep your website lean and therefore fast.

Images and animations also produce an HTTP request every time. It is therefore also important to reduce their number and use them as sparingly as possible.

Many uncompressed files make WordPress slow

In addition to the number of HTTP requests, the size of the data transferred is also important. Media files take up the most space. Normally, these are images and graphics. However, texts, comments and other content can also increase the size of the data packets to be transmitted.

Radically clearing out and compressing data can also help here. Or you can use a cache.

WordPress slow? A cache always helps!

A cache can be understood as a kind of short-term memory. If a browser cache is activated, for example, the browser can remember previously visited websites for a certain period of time. It therefore remembers which content and functionalities are displayed on the website and in what form. If you have visited the website once and call it up again a short time later, the browser does not have to send an HTTP request to the server, but can build up the website completely "from memory".

Caching is not a very simple topic. There are dozens of different types of caches that can be installed and activated in many different places. The fastest caching solution is usually provided by plugins such as W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache or the paid WP Rocket.

Conclusion: Reducing server requests is a good remedy for slow WordPress - but only half the battle

The entire WordPress optimization process is based on reducing HTTP requests and compressing the data packets to be transmitted. However, the best way to achieve this is to completely disable this process and activate a cache.

WordPress optimization can therefore be very time-consuming. And it's only half the battle. Because without the right server power and the right hosting plan, you can optimize your website as much as you want: WordPress will simply remain slow.