The performance and speed of your website can make or break a visitor’s experience. If pages take too long to load, images are too big to display, or internal or external links are broken, it becomes too difficult for a customer or client to access your website. If you are looking to improve the performance of your WordPress website, check out the free plug-ins below.
Jetpack
Jetpack is an all-inclusive package of very helpful features. It not only helps increase your website’s performance, but it also manages your site security, monitors traffic growth, improves website appearance, and increases image optimization.
Akismet
Akismet, an anti-spam plug-in, checks all incoming comments while it filters out any spam. Akismet is now a default plug-in for any new WordPress website.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO (search engine optimization) is perfect for the SEO beginner. This plug-in helps you create better content on your website which will cause it to rank higher in Google searches.
Broken Link Checker
Broken Link Checker checks all content, including comments and posts for any broken links. It also notifies you of any missing images.
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache increases the page load speed and also reduces download times of all content and images.
Google Analytics
This helpful plug-in tracks many different statistics regarding a visitor’s experience on your website, such as the number of visits, page views, and bounce rates.
Google XML Site Map
Google XML Site Map automatically generates an XML sitemap for your website. Search engines use this sitemap to index your blog, making it easier for people to find you on the web. With this plug-in, search engines are also notified whenever you create new content.
WordFence Security
WordFence Security provides powerful protection for your WordPress website, including login security, live traffic monitoring, blocking, malware scan, and firewall protection.
WP-Optimize
WP-Optimize removes junk files that are stored in your database, which can decrease the speed and performance of your website.
WP Smush
WP Smush compresses images in order to decrease the size of the image without hurting the quality. The smaller image size can also increase the speed and performance of your website.