8 best way To Speed Up A Slow Elementor Website

December 17, 2020
adminrok
articles, Elementor, Page Builders

Have a slow Elementor website?

A slow Elementor site can usually be fixed by using faster plugins, hosting, upgrading to PHP 7.4, increasing memory limit, configuring WP Rocket with a CDN, and optimizing your images, database, third party scripts, and plugins. These should make a significant speed improvement.

Elementor says the most common reasons for a slow Elementor website are your servers, media, third party scripts, plugins, no CDN, and using a mediocre cache plugin.

Quick tips to fix slow page speeds on Elementor:

Use PHP version 7.3 or higher
Increase memory limit to 256MB
Invest in a top-rated cache plugin
Move away from low quality hosting
Combine font files and preload them
Use a CDN like Cloudflare or RocketCDN
Avoid using resource-hungry plugins with Elementor
Host Google Fonts, Analytics, and Facebook Pixel locally
Be minimal with fonts, weights, and Elementor font icons
Enable varnish and memcached when using cloud hosting
Selectively disable plugins and scripts from specific content
Find oversized images in GTmetrix and resize to correct dimensions

1. Disable Unused Elementor Addons

Many Elementor plugins have widgets, add-ons, and scripts which are turned on by default, but you may not be using (Elementor Ultimate Addons, Premium Addons For Elementor, etc). Go through each plugin’s settings and deactivate the addons not currently being used on the site.

To go a step further, install Asset CleanUp or Perfmatters and use the script manager to deactivate Elementor scripts not being used on your site. For example, if you’re only using some Elementor functionality on pages (but not posts), you can deactivate the scripts on your posts. Again, test each one carefully since this can also break things if you are indeed using the script.

2. Upgrade To PHP 7.4

Check your current PHP Version under Elementor > System Info. Upgrading PHP versions is one of the easiest ways to speed up your Elementor site. Kinsta’s PHP benchmarks show how higher PHP versions can run 2-3x faster. Elementor also recommends higher PHP versions and to increase memory limit to 256MB (see next step).

You can do this in your hosting account:

3. Increase Memory Limit To 256MB

Again, check your memory limit under Elementor > System Info.

Both Elementor, WordPress, and WooCommerce recommend a 256MB memory limit.

You can usually change memory limits in your hosting account:

Otherwise, add this code to functions.php

define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ );

4. Avoid Slow Loading Plugins

Some plugins you should just stay away from.

High CPU plugins that slow down Elementor sites usually have to do with statistics, backups, social sharing, portfolios, live chat, contact forms, sliders, JetPack, and any plugin that is constantly required to run on your website (such as Query Monitor or Broken Link Checker).

5. Clean Your Database

WP Rocket doesn’t let you go through individual plugin tables, while WP Optimize does. This lets you delete old tables left behind by plugins you deleted which are shown as “not installed.” You probably installed the plugin, deleted it, but it left behind pre-configured settings in your database. So if you don’t plan on using that plugin again, delete the table. Otherwise, WP Rocket is fine for regular database cleanups, but install WP-Optimize and do this every so often.

6. Utilize CDNs

Most Elementor users are using Cloudflare or RocketCDN (with WP Rocket).

RocketCDN is extremely easy to set up (just buy the plan through WP Rocket which uses StackPath’s data centers), while Cloudflare requires changing nameservers. If you’re using Cloudflare, be sure to go through your actual Cloudflare dashboard and tweak your settings.

Speed: enable Brotli and Rocket Loader
Scrape Shield: enable hotlink protection
Page Rules: set up page rules for WordPress
Firewall: block bad bots from Wordfence’s live traffic report

7. Clean Your Database

8. Enable Varnish + Memcached

Below are settings for Cloudways, but other providers also have these options. If using SG Optimizer, activate memcached in SiteGround’s dashboard then activate it in SG Optimizer.

source : https://onlinemediamasters.com/