Are you looking for the best plugins to increase the speed of your site?

This article is all that you need.

With WordPress powering 35% of websites on the Internet, it is the most prominent content management system; the web has.

Another interesting fact about WordPress is that it has more visitors than Twitter.

Therefore, you aren’t wrong if you believe WordPress to be the most popular.

So be rest assured that you’re blogging on the best.

Now, you might be wondering about what makes WordPress the go-to.

Below are some reasons why WordPress is the most popular content management system the world has ever witnessed.

Reasons Why WordPress is Popular

Free and Open Source:

The fact that WordPress is free for everyone is one strong reason people are cool with it.

You’re only paying for your provider’s hosting package whenever you pay for hosting, not for WordPress installation or usage.

Moreover, it is an open-source project which means it is open to the community of developers to create a better version of it anytime.

So far, without losing the count, there are about 32 updates made to WordPress.

Rookie-Friendly:

It has a renowned simplicity that ensures even non-web programmers find ease when building their sites.

The user interface is a splendid one.

Awesome Themes & Plugins:

If asked about themes and plugins, I’d proudly say, “WordPress is the best.”

More than 50 thousand plugins make life easier with WordPress, and themes are not numbered.

So, whether it is to beautify a website, simplify it, increase its SEO score, scan for broken links, prevent it from being breached, and so much more, you can quickly get things up and running on WordPress.

Multiple Languages Support:

WordPress has support for 60+ languages and is also available for use by everyone around the world.

Did we mention the availability of tens of thousands of WordPress plugins that are up for grabs and available for optimizing website speed?

Having a slow webpage loading speed can be detrimental because it directly affects site visitors’ experiences.

It has the potential to drive them away to the broader world and possibly fall into the hands of our competitors.

It is therefore essential to make your site efficient when it comes to speed.

Besides, getting an audience is becoming more complex, and you can’t afford to lose the few you have.

Therefore, we will discuss some of the best WordPress optimization plugins you can leverage in optimizing your site for speed.

Before we get on with the list, it is equally important to begin by checking some of the tools you can use to ascertain the speed of your site.

Below are some of the best tools to run a speed test for your website.

Pingdom

This one is well known for its efficiency in testing sites’ loading speed.

You get a demo and 30 days trial for free, and if you’d like to keep track of your site, you can pay for a subscription after the trial.

All you need to do is paste your web address in the provided field to get on the go.

The click of a button is analyzed, and results will be ready within a few moments.

Google WebPage Speed Insight

Here comes a tool by Google to test a site’s speed, and of course, it is a free tool available for everyone.

Like other speed testers, this would also help you with scores relative to your site’s performance when loading web pages.

GT Metrix

This is another freemium tool to check your site performance based on its speed.

It has a friendly interface that explains every metric in detail so that you can fully grasp the respective value resulting from the speed tests.

These three, I believe, are enough to give us critical insights into the speeds of any site.

If the result doesn’t sound favorable, there are a couple of things that may result in your site’s poor performance.

It may be the fault of your hosting provider or the things that are on your site.

It would be a great idea to move to another hosting provider or switch to another hosting plan in the first case.

In the second case, there are several ways to create a fix.

A great way to have this fixed is by leveraging a WordPress optimization plugin for speed.

To achieve this, below is a list of plugins that would come in handy.

11 Best WordPress Plugins for Speed Optimization

1. NitroPack

This is a conglomerate of speed optimization tools.

It is designed to add an extra plugin to handle the speed optimization task after its installation.

Nitropack takes care of your Javascript, CSS, HTML, Images, and caches when optimizing your site.

Every cacheable part of your site uses its advanced caching feature to set how aggressive you want it to be.

2. WP Rocket

Pricing: Paid (no trial version but has a 14-day money-back guarantee)

Everyone has their definition of what they consider the best.

WP Rocket is one topic I am interested in discussing.

This is because it is non-techy friendly.

With a single click to its activation, you can get the plugin to crawl the entirety and help speed up the WordPress website.

This eliminates the hassles associated with making specific configurations to get a plugin active and running.

All you have to do is activate it, and caching begins at its full potential here.

3. W3 Total Cache

Pricing: Free and Pro Versions

When it comes to popularity, the W3 cache happens to be at the top.

I believe what is popular is also most used.

People aren’t going to use something to that extent if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.

So, let’s see what’s unique about the W3 total cache as a tool of WordPress website speed.

Most new versions of WordPress come with this plugin preinstalled, and even if it doesn’t, you can get it installed manually.

Some of its key features happen to be its compatibility with a vast array of servers and hosting plans and superb minification of web pages,

However, the configuration process can be scary to beginners.

Using recommended setup files for your site type would get you good and acceptable.

4. WP Super Cache

Pricing: Free

It seems we are recycling around the popular ones here because the WP Super Cache WordPress caching plugin is another one.

It is worth giving a shot because it is free to use and still contains any plugin’s robust features that increase a website’s speed.

Well, this isn’t anything to be surprised about because the plugin is open source.

This plugin can speed up your WordPress website, saves your bandwidth through minification, has cache rebuild, and has full support for CDN, in addition to more.

It has two layers of settings.

The first is the basic to users who don’t want to get too technical.

If you need to take more control in your hands, the advanced settings would be your best bet.

5. WP Super Minify

Pricing: Free

Javascript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) have considerable roles to play when it comes to site speed.

That is where super minify would come in handy.

This plugin is ideal for minification, caching, and bringing the Javascript and CSS files together in one piece.

That results in the shrinking of the size of lines of codes without affecting the functionality of your site.

However, super minify conflicts with some other speed optimization plugins.

So, you may want to use it alone or switch to another if you’re planning on using multiple plugins to increase your site loading speed.

6. WP-Optimize

Pricing: Free and Premium plans available

Your database could also mean the difference between a rocket-level experience regarding website loading speed and a snailing one.

So, here comes WP optimize, which optimizes by cleaning your database junks, caches, and image files.

It seems more for a full-stack option and can be all you need if you’re looking for a generalized solution for site loading delay.

7. Sucuri FireWall

Pricing: Paid

Sometimes, you may need to increase your loading speed on WordPress with one plugin and move to another to prevent your site from any malware or hacking attacks.

Well, Sucuri Firewall is, as the name implies, a firewall to protect your sites from breaches.

It has caching functionality that caches your site for optimum performance.

So, if you’re looking for a website security and performance increase all in one package, Sucuri Firewall is one of your best bets.

8. Hyper Cache

Pricing: Free

Of course, this plugin is among the least popular and has just 30,000+ downloads.

Still, considering its easy setup and robust features, the hyper cache WordPress speed optimization plugin is worth giving a try.

It is mobile-friendly and offers theme switching for users based on their devices.

Not only that, but because your hosting provider may, in few cases, have no compression support, this plugin will have your back in this, as well.

I wish more people, especially starters realize its potential.

There are more features within this little and unpopular plugin.

If, however, your site needs advanced caching, you’ll need a plugin way better than this.

9. Lazy Load by “WP Rocket.”

Pricing: Free and Open source

It is another WordPress speed optimization plugin brought to users by WP Rocket.

Let’s see what it has in store for us this time.

Well, a typical web page, once opened, loads entirely to the user.

Using this plugin, the part of your site visible to the user will be the only part to load.

When the user keeps scrolling the page, more and more parts begin loading.

With the lazy load plugin, images are the primary points of focus.

It is ideal in increasing your site speed and for your viewers; it also minimizes their bandwidths.

10. WP Smush

Pricing: Free

Lazy loading is quite a trend now.

That is because images are significant contributing factors for the loading speed of a web page, especially the ones with a larger size.

One of the most outstanding features of this WordPress speed optimization plugin is that while it defers the loading of off-screen images, it decreases your image sizes without resulting in an apparent decrease in its overall quality.

11. Asset CleanUp

Pricing: Free and Paid

Minifying or bringing together your scripts in one file isn’t always the solution to slow sites.

They sometimes tend to add up as bloats, making you unable to get your desired results.

Using the Asset Cleanup plugin, you can specify plugins to load within their designated pages, so they don’t keep executing their codes on a page that isn’t relevant.

You can also use this plugin and other plugins on your site without experiencing further conflicts.

Final Thoughts

Your site’s performance doesn’t only affect the user experience.

It also sends a strong signal to search engines, making them stop suggesting your site to users as often as they should.

This is why you don’t need to worry about having the best theme on your site, bringing traffic to your site, or making conversions.

If you’re determined enough, optimizing your page loading speed is a great starting point.

Fortunately, one or more of the 11 plugins listed here may prove to be helpful.

Need more tools to improve your website’s speed? Check out these articles below:

11 Things That Are Slowing Down Your Website Loading Speed

21 Proven Ways to Increase Your Domain Authority Score

9 Ways to Make People Stay on Your Site Longer