Speeding Up WordPress With the Right Theme

As WordPress grows, theme makers are specialising and diversifying their creations.

One theme, Swift Basic, claims to be the “fastest loading” WordPress theme on the block.

A test by WP Addict [no longer online] suggested that themes may influence site loading time.

But what makes one theme perform better than the rest? 

Factors Affecting Load Times

It should be obvious that a theme with fewer multimedia elements will load more quickly than a text-only theme.

But when two themes are the same size, why is there still a difference?

Looking at WP Addict’s tests, Swift was a similar size to Hybrid yet it was nearly 2 seconds faster to load. That’s because of the way it’s coded.

On a simple page, the theme will mix static content with dynamic content from the database. But these instructions aren’t always well-written. Some themes make unnecessary database queries, repeat actions needlessly, put queries in the wrong order or perform tasks in inefficient ways. Old themes are prone to these issues.

Themes that don’t make proper use of CSS, or don’t properly compress/optimize code, can drastically slow down loading time too.

Picking a Speedy WordPress Theme

There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ speed, so it’s hard to quantify what makes a fast theme. But there are a few things that help.

• WordPress is constantly introducing new features that improve performance. Choose a theme that takes advantage of them. That means a new theme or a recently revised theme.
• New theme developers don’t always know all the tricks. Find a theme coded by an experienced WordPress developer.
• Try several themes and test them. Try to simulate your actual site the best you can, right down to a duplicate of the database.

How Important Is Speed?

Your theme is just one factor in loading time. There are dozens of other ways to speed up a WordPress site: proper caching, fewer plugins, a CDN or smaller images.

A good theme is worth having, but it’ll only have an impact if you look at your site as a whole.