It’s easy to get lost in the ocean of WordPress plugins when it comes to speed optimization. But we have tried to pull out some of the best free WordPress speed optimization plugins so that you don’t have to and will save your time and effort. (you’re welcome 😉 )
After developing the whole website we often come across a problem of slow website and no matter how hard you try to optimize it nothing just seems to work. We were so busy building all the other pieces that we almost forgot the most important factor. Speed! And Google loves speed.
Well, we are here to rescue you!
Major Reasons Behind a Slow Website:
👉 Poorly optimized theme
👉 Overly large images
👉 A heavy page builder
👉 Unnecessary styles and scripts loading on the page
👉 Not all but some plugins do affect the page speed
👉 Styles or scripts blocking the page content
👉 last but not the least, Slow server
“The upgraded version from 5.5 WordPress gives lazy loading of images by default.” (Lazy Loading means images wait to load until they’re just about to scroll into view.) “As a result images won’t affect the page loading, and posts and pages will load faster.”
But still you should always optimize your large images.
Here are 4 best free WordPress speed optimization plugins boost site performance, reduce load time, and improve your Google PageSpeed Score – no coding needed.
1. Hummingbird – Speed Optimize, Cache, Minify & Defer Critical CSS & JavaScript by WPMU DEV
Hummingbird is an all-in-one plugin. In other words, you don’t need 4 different plugins for 4 different purposes. It has both free & paid versions. Though its free version is also quite good. Because it covers almost every tactic you require to get a succeeding page score.
The Benefits of Hummingbird Plugin:
- File compression
- GZIP compression
- Asset Optimization
- Eliminate render-blocking resources by deferring CSS and JS
- Minify CSS and JS
- Combine CSS or JS
- Lazy Load integration
- World-class caching
- One-click site performance test
The key point is, it provides a one-click site performance test right within the plugin, giving you instant insights along with actionable tips, tricks, and expert recommendations to boost your website speed and overall performance.
An excellent feature of Hummingbird is asset optimization. It lists out all the JS, CSS & Font files that are being included whether by any plugin or theme, or core. This gets handy. Because this allows you to handle unloading useless files, compress individual script/styles to reduce their size, move them to the footer to avoid render-blocking, combine multiple files to lesser the requests, etc.
‘But remember, every time you unload or combine any file, test the website thoroughly to avoid any error or page design clutter.’
As a result, this technique will actually make a difference to your page speed score.
2. Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster by Gabriel Livan
Asset CleanUp is another good plugin that is there. It has both free & paid versions.
The Benefits of Asset CleanUp:
- Eliminate render-blocking resources by unloading useless CSS/JS (important for faster page load)
- Preload CSS/JS, Local Fonts & Google Fonts files
- Minify CSS and JavaScript files
- Combine CSS & JavaScript files
- Inline CSS Files
- Site-wide removal for Emojis, Dashicons for guest users, and Comment Reply if they are not used
- Reduces the HTML code of the actual page (that’s even better if GZIP compression is enabled)
- Apply “font-display” CSS property to all loaded Google Font requests
- Combine all Google Font requests into fewer requests
One of the standout features of Asset CleanUp is its ability to scan and detect all assets (CSS, JS, Fonts) loaded on each page and list them individually. This allows for page-specific unloading of unnecessary assets.
For instance, if a contact form plugin enqueues its styles and scripts globally, but the form is only rendered on the contact page, Asset CleanUp enables you to unload those assets from all other pages, minimizing HTTP requests, reducing page weight, and improving overall load times.
Combining HummingBird and Asset Cleanup will work like a charm!
3. Autoptimize by Frank Goossens
Autoptimize is a simple yet very popular plugin that is there when it comes to WordPress optimization. It is easy and straightforward to configure. It also has free and premium versions.
The Benefits of Autoptimize:
- Aggregate scripts and styles
- Inline critical CSS
- Defer the aggregated full CSS,
- Moves and defers scripts to the footer
- Minify scripts and styles
- Minifies HTML
- Optimize and lazy-load images,
- Optimize Google Fonts,
- Async non-aggregated JavaScript,
- Remove WordPress core emoji cruft
Your page speed score will be on boost with Autoptimize.
4. Jetpack by Automattic
Jetpack is another great all-in-one plugin. It not only gives site performance tools but also provides security. It has a paid version too.
The major key factor of Jetpack is free CDN. CDN (Content Delivery Network), which means once you connect your site with Jetpack you can just start using this service and all your images & resources will be now loaded from their own global server and not yours. This results in a faster page speed score.
24/7 Site Security:
- Brute-force attack protection, spam filtering, and downtime monitoring.
- Backups of your entire site
- Secure login, with optional two-factor authentication.
- Malware scanning, code scanning, and automated threat resolution.
Peak Performance:
Jetpack optimizes your images and serve them from their own powerful global network, and speed up your mobile site to reduce bandwidth usage. Connect Jetpack to your account to take advantage of:
- Images and static files, like CSS and JavaScript, served from our servers, not yours.
- Elasticsearch-powered related content and site search, for relevant results with no drain on your servers.
- Lazy load images for a faster mobile experience.
- Unlimited and high-speed video via our content delivery network.
Your page speed score will be on fly with Jetpack.
Hope this was helpful.
If your site is slow and costing you leads, we can help. We’re speed optimization experts ready to make your website run blazing fast. Contact us now and let’s get your site working smarter, not harder.
