In this fast paced impatient world, a slow website can kill your business. People don’t like to wait for pages to load. They want the information now.

I have already written about the importance of choosing a good host for your website. I have also recommended the implementation of CloudFlare. But there is another factor which many people often overlook. Sometimes a slow website just needs some more memory.

The default memory allocation for WordPress is 40 megabytes. Unless you are running a simple website with a minimalistic theme and few plugins, this may not be enough memory. Your visitors may experience slow page loads and even error pages.

Fortunately, there is a simple way to fix this memory problem. You can tell WordPress to use more memory. Here’s how:

You need to access the root folder of your WordPress installation either via your Cpanel file manager or FTP. Open the file called WP-CONFIG.PHP

Add this right before the line that says, “Happy Blogging”:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

Make sure you save the file.

Usually, this should do the trick. This is telling WordPress to use more server memory.

Sometimes, you may have to also modify the PHP.INI file (which is also found in the root) or you may have to contact your host and ask them to increase the server memory limits.

If you need help or have questions, please click here to contact me.

The post Slow website? It may not have enough memory appeared first on Website Issues, WordPress errors, Maneo Web.

• Reducing the size of header, background, and gallery images in your WordPress installation.
• Compressing CSS, JS, and text using GZIP (I have seen this have a dramatic effect on WordPress load times).
• Installing a caching plugin such as WT3 Cache or WordPress Super Cache.
• Reducing the number of plugins or replacing plugins with others that are designed better.

Unfortunately, there are times when no amount of tweaking will speed up a WordPress website. That’s when it’s time to go beyond WordPress and take a close look at your host. If your slow WordPress site is on a shared hosting package, you may be competing for resources with dozens of other websites.  If some of those websites are resource intensive, they may hog the server and slow down all of the other websites.

If you are serious about improving your website’s performance, you will need to think about either switching to a better shared host or upgrading your hosting package to a VPS (virtual private server). Some shared hosts are better than others because they throttle websites that are hogging resources. A VPS is the best option because it will insulate your website from other websites on the server and ensure that your site is getting the resources that it needs.

Higher quality shared hosting or a VPS will cost you more money but upgrading will be well worth the money. Don’t forget that Google takes your page speed into consideration when determining where you will appear in the ranking. In other words, page speed is very important for SEO purposes. Besides that, you want to have a WordPress website that runs smoothly for your visitors.

By the way, you’ve probably noticed that my site is very fast. It absolutely is! Take a look. We are faster than 78% of the websites on the Internet:

Do you need some advice about upgrading or switching to a new host? Click here to contact me (Rob) at Maneo Web. I’ll be happy to help!

The post Why is my WordPress website slow? It might be your host. appeared first on Website Issues, WordPress errors, Maneo Web.