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6 Steps to speed up a WordPress theme for videos

October 13, 2015

A WordPress theme for videos offers significant flexibility in changing setting, adding or removing built-in plugins and modifying theme options to enhance page speed. Therefore, the owners of WordPress video sites should use the following steps to ensure a faster site performance.

6 Steps to make a WordPress theme for videos faster

Step 1: Enable gzip Compression

Enable gzip compression in WordPress can reduce load time by over 300%. So, you should compress the code of the used WordPress theme for videos if possible. If compatibility used to be an issue with earlier browsers, almost modern browsers can handle gzip compression out of the box with significant returns in site performance.

WordPress theme for videos 1

Step 2: Cut down on code bloat

Many free and paid WordPress themes for video portfolio are guilty of using excessive HTML/CSS elements, which adds up to site bloat and reduces page speed. After installing any WordPress video theme, you should remove all superfluous HTML and CSS elements, reduce unnecessary tags, optimize and combine CSS rules for maximum efficiency.

Step 3: Compress images in the WordPress theme for videos

Loading large images places significant strain on the server. You should ensure that every image of the WordPress video theme you use is optimized and compressed to consume as little bandwidth as possible.

Step 4: Minify CSS and Javascript in the theme’s files

WordPress theme for videos 2

“Minify” is an add-on to PHP 5 that combines multiple CSS and Javascript files, then serves them with gzip compression. It is integrated into W3 Total Cache and other plugins. It helps reduce code bloat, remove excessive whitespace and avoid redundant server connections to make faster page loading time.

Step 5: Avoid installing unnecessary built-in plugins

Almost every premium WordPress theme for videos comes with built-in plugins, which offer you more options and features. However, plugin bloat is one of the reasons causing slow site performance. Almost plugins create extra files to load and process which places strain on server and increase loading time. Therefore, you had better reduce the number of built-in plugins used on your video site as much as possible. In general, a WordPress site should not have more than five plugins, including built-in ones, and the ideal figure never exceeds 10.

Step 6: Remove default advertisements

Advertisements are often the last elements loaded on a webpage because they rely on external servers to host their media. Flash and image-based ads makes page loading time slower and they can push well-optimized site into slow loading category. You should remove default advertisements in the used WordPress theme for videos and images to see a noticeable improvement in performance and meet the demand of visitors.

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