If you are running a WordPress website, regularly updating your WordPress settings is necessary. In addition, a website can become slow due to high CPU/ RAM usage, impacting the site users and SEO. Therefore, you will need to reduce the resources causing the high RAM/ CPU in this case.
Following are a few suggestions that will help you to prevent high CPU/RAM usage on your WordPress –
1. Update WordPress Plugins and Themes
WordPress's plugins and themes are handy for implementing the required setting without hiring Developers. However, updating the plugins and overcoming bugs and other problems that lead to future issues is essential. Therefore, download and install the plugins/themes from trusted sources.
2. Remove Unwanted Plugins
It is not good to keep the unwanted plugins either active or deactivated. It may cause an issue with the CPU and RAM. You should remove the unwanted plugins which are not required for your website. It would help if you also avoided the plugins which use high resources.
3. Update WordPress Version
You should keep the WordPress version up to date. WordPress Developers regularly release updated WordPress versions to fix the bug reported in their previous versions. In addition, the new version will come with advanced security, the latest feature, and faster speed.
4. Optimize Database Tables
Sometimes few database queries may load high CPU usage. You will need to involve your website developer to check your WordPress Database from phpMyAdmin and optimize the Database Table, which leads to high CPU. Database optimization will reduce the Database size and provide faster performance.
5. Use WordPress Caching
If you use WordPress caching, it will cache the static pages of your website as an archive and serve your visitors. This will minimize the server load by reducing the multiple queries to your database; it will load quickly in the browser. In addition, there are caching plugins available for WordPress that can be used to boost website performance.
6. Disable WordPress Cron
WordPress cron runs as users access your website each time. WP-Cron manages all the scheduled tasks on your WordPress. This task will give pressure on server resources. To solve this issue, either you can disable the WordPress cron or schedule the cron job, which runs every hour. It can be disabled by adding or modifying the line as depicted below in wp-config.php –
define (‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true)
7. Use Optimized Images
You can't overlook or avoid images when you manage a website, as these define the look of your WordPress website. However, images may take time to load, consuming high bandwidth and other server resources. Therefore, it is always recommended to use compressed or optimized images. If you have cPanel or another hosting control panel, it will provide the readymade optimized handy tool.
8. Upgrade the PHP Version
All the PHP versions above 7 are faster and more secure. Upgrading to the latest PHP version will consume less CPU usage than the previous version. Before using PHP version 7 for your website from your control panel, you will need to make the WordPress website compatible to use that version. Themes and plugins should be compatible.
9. Enable CDN
CDN loads static content like CSS and JS stored at the edge CDN server. Hence, it will reduce the load on your server and increase website performance.
