When a WordPress website becomes over 500 megs, problems can occur.
The site can get harder to backup and resurrect in the case of a problem. It’s good practice to remember the backup copy also takes up your valuable hosting disk space. Image size is usually the main contributing factor. These large images can also slow down the website’s loading times and potentially negatively affect your Google search result ranking.
Larger sites with larger images and slower load times will drain bandwidth resources much faster than a smaller, more efficient site. The fewer hosting resources your site uses, the less money you will spend on hosting costs overall. If you save resources, you save money and make your audience happy too.
Here are some suggestions from Hester Design’s team of web developers:
1. Regular Review
Have a 3 to 6-month schedule to periodically review your media library for old or large files that can be removed or replaced. If your library doesn’t have a “replace” option, call us.
2. Images
Always save your images “for web” with an image editor, such as Adobe Photoshop. Only upload JPGs, PNGs or WEBP files to the media library for images. If your image is over 1 megabyte, it’s likely too big. Another resource is TinyJPG.com or Bulk Resize Photos to crunch them down further.
— Images should be under 2000 x 2000 pixels in size.
— Check your site’s stylesheet page to crop images properly.
3. Documents
If you have to have a linked document, saving documents as PDFs “for web” is the best method. Your website isn’t a good document storage area, so use them sparingly. Adobe Acrobat is a great tool for crunching down PDF files.
— PDFs should be under 2 megabytes in size
4. Videos
Instead of uploading videos to the media library, use YouTube or Vimeo to host and display them. These resources give you code for each video that can be used on a web page.
5. Upgrade Hosting
Upgrade to the next hosting level. This is a cost-effective way to give you more room while you work on efficiencies. Hester Designs can upgrade your hosting at any time. Just give us a call or send an email.
If you like these tips and would like a few more occasionally, please subscribe to our newsletter by clicking this link or the button below.
