Fixing Website Performance Issues with Cloudways Hosting

As a website owner, there’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with slow loading times and performance issues.

Recently, I faced this exact problem with my website. But, with some troubleshooting and optimization techniques, I was able to identify and fix the issues, resulting in a significant improvement in website performance.

The Problem

My website, which is built on WordPress, was experiencing slow loading times, taking around 10–15 seconds to fully load. This was not only affecting user experience but also impacting search engine rankings and conversion rates.

Initial Troubleshooting

I started by using tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom to analyze my website’s performance. These tools provided valuable insights into the issues, including:

High server response times
Slow database queries
Unoptimized images
Too many HTTP requests
Optimization Techniques

with the help of cloudways, the following optimization techniques is implemented:

Server-Side Caching: enabled Cloudways’ built-in server-side caching, which significantly reduced server response times.
Database Optimization: use the WP DB Optimizer plugin to optimize my database, reducing query times and improving overall database performance.
Image Compression: compressed images, reducing file sizes and improving page load times.
Minification and Compression: enabled minification and compression of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files, reducing the overall file size and improving page load times.
Content Delivery Network (CDN): set up a Cloudways CDN to distribute content across different servers, reducing the load on my main server and improving page load times.

Results

After implementing these optimization techniques, I re-ran the performance tests and was thrilled to see the results:

Loading Time: Reduced from 10–15 seconds to under 3 seconds
Server Response Time: Reduced from 500ms to under 100ms
Page Size: Reduced from 2MB to under 500KB
Requests: Reduced from 100+ to under 50

Conclusion

By implementing server-side caching, database optimization, image compression, minification and compression, and a CDN, I was able to significantly improve my website’s performance, resulting in a better user experience and improved search engine rankings. If you’re experiencing similar issues, I hope this success story inspires you to take action and optimize your website’s performance.