How You Can Make Fewer HTTP Queries to Increase Site Speed

A few things are as frustrating as waiting for a website to load slowly, particularly when you are in a hurry to get done with your business or inquiry on the site. WordPress website speed affects how users interact with your page. Most are not willing to wait patiently for your site to load. If you’re using WordPress in 2021 without paying attention to your site loading speed, you’re doing your business a disservice. Google reports that 53% of visitors will leave websites that load for more than 3 seconds. Check out slot spiele kostenlos herunterladen.

Too many HTTP queries are one of the reasons some WordPress sites load slowly. A reduction in the HTTP queries in your WordPress site will result in a reduction in your page loading time. It will increase the speed at which users can access your content and improve their browsing experience. 

You’re probably wondering what can be done to minimize HTTP queries in WordPress. You’ll get to know that shortly. By the end of this piece, you’ll have a good understanding of HTTP queries and how to use them in the right measure.

What Are HTTP Queries?

HTTP is an acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It is the channel of communication between browsers and web servers. When someone visits your site, the browser sends an HTTP request to your server for each element/file on your site. Your server sends the files in response to the request. A separate request is sent for every element of your WordPress theme, including WordPress Plugins on your webpage. The page opens to the user when all the files are downloaded. 

The more the files on your website page, the more the HTTP queries. Fewer files, fewer queries, and faster loading time. Larger files equal longer HTTP queries. Ideally, your website should contain less than 50 files per page for optimal WordPress performance. Also, you must pay attention to the size of files on the WordPress pages of your website. A 50KB image will load faster than a 2MB image. So while you’re working on reducing the number of HTTP requests on your page, it will help more to attend to larger files first.

How to Analyze Your WordPress Site’s HTTP Queries

Analyzing your site’s HTTP queries will tell you how many queries your site is making. It will also show you what elements are making larger requests and slowing downloading rate. With the information, you'll decide which requests are relevant and which should be removed. 

If you’re using Chrome, the browser's Developer Tools can show how many HTTP queries your website generates every time it loads. Right-click the page you want to analyze and select "inspect." From the drop-down menu, select "Network." It will show you the network activities of the page. Refresh the page with the network panel still open. You’ll see your HTTP queries as they happen.

You can also carry out this analysis using several other speed test tools available on the internet. Tools like GTmetrix, and Pingdom, and WordPress plugins like Query Monitor does this well.

How to Make Fewer HTTP Queries on Your Site

Making the necessary changes to your WordPress website’s HTTP queries is not as difficult as it sounds. An average WordPress user can work through it without necessarily needing professional help. Countless WordPress tutorials are available to show how to go about it. Here are eight easy ways to make fewer HTTP queries.

1. Remove Unnecessary Images

Images make websites more appealing and user-friendly. Users generally find websites with images more engaging than those without images. This means that images are important and valuable. However, it would be best if you remembered that each image makes its separate HTTP query. It is best to remove images that do not necessarily add value to your site. This will trim off excess HTTP queries and improve your website loading speed.

2. Reduce Image File Size

While reducing image file size will not reduce the number of HTTP queries, it will help increase your page loading speed. Smaller files have smaller HTTP queries and will load faster than large files.

Remember to keep an eye on the image quality while reducing the file size. Reducing image file size can reduce image quality, so you will want to be careful when doing that.

3. Enable Lazy Load

Lazy load improves your website speed by loading only on-screen images. It defers the loading of images that are not visible until the user scrolls down to it. If you never scroll down, your browser will never load images below the page not visible on the screen. This helps in speeding up page loading because your gadget will not 

send all HTTP queries at once.

Select WordPress theme settings from your WordPress dashboard to manually enable Lazy load and find and enable the lazy load option. And even if your theme does not include lazy load, it is automatically included when using WordPress core and an updated browser. If your WordPress is outdated, ensure you install WordPress updates to access this option.

4. Disable Unnecessary Plugins

Too many plugins are not very healthy for your WordPress Website. They slow down the loading speed of your WordPress pages by adding HTTP queries. Disable and uninstall plugins that are not very relevant to your site. Also, stay clear of plugins that use external requests and take time to load. This is especially common with social media plugins. If you must use social media plugins, find one that makes minimal HTTP queries and loads fast. 

5. Combine CSS and JavaScript

Combining CSS and JavaScript files is a good way to reduce HTTP queries. You can do this easily without having to modify your CSS file manually. This feature is already included in many modern WordPress themes. Check your theme options to see if it's included.

If your theme does not include the setting, you can use WordPress caching plugins to include it in your page. Install the plugin, find the setting, and enable it.

6. Minify Code (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript)

Still, your WordPress theme setting is another option that can make your page load faster. It is known as minification. Minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters which are not needed for execution from your website’s source code. Enabling the minify setting in your WordPress theme or caching plugin removes all unneeded characters in your website’s code.

Minifying the code reduces and shortens HTTP queries in WordPress, making your site load faster.

7. Reduce external scripts

External scripts are plugins or elements that pull queries from other websites. While reducing your HTTP queries, you do not want your efforts ruined by queries from other sites. External scripts mainly include social sharing plugins, Google (Analytics & AdSense), and embedded widgets. External scripts are useful in connecting our site to social platforms but can impede WordPress performance by multiplying HTTP requests in WordPress. To avoid this, you need to include only necessary external scripts on your site.

8. Use a CDN

CDN means Content Delivery Network. It is currently one of the most popular methods of optimizing website loading speed. CDN uses geographically distributed servers to provide cached content to a user from the server closest to his location. This way, a user can access your content quickly and efficiently, irrespective of his location. In addition to boosting side speed, CDNs help improve SEO and site reliability.

Finally

Site speed is as important for SEO as website content. Reducing HTTP queries on your site is a good way to begin the journey of a faster website. We’re sure you’ve learned how to do just that by now. 

Do let us know how helpful you found this article by leaving a comment below.

Author's bio:

Arthur is a digital marketing specialist and business blogger. He develops interesting startups through various social media and shares his experience with clients to better promote their business. In his spare time, Arthur studies Japanese and writes articles on digital transformation trends.