WordPress is the most popular platform amongst bloggers. WordPress supports some of the biggest and most-read blogs. Such blogs have very high traffic and are much harder to manage. The administrator has a lot to look after, from the HTML to WordPress themes. They also need to ensure that the website runs smoothly. To achieve this, it is vital to scale the site according to the requirements.
Before going further into the steps of scaling a WordPress site, we need to understand the term ‘scaling’ better!
What is ‘scaling’?
When our website encounters high traffic, there is a considerable chance that the servers may fail to put up with the increased load and hence interfere with the reader’s experience. In the long run, this will end up hampering traffic due to the unavailability of content to the reader. One of the significant advantages of moving your website WordPress is the ease of scalability that the platform provides.
It is safe to say that scaling is an essential aspect of managing a high traffic website! Here’s how ti scales your website:
- ‘Bottleneck trafficking’: The first roadblock
When your website garners a tremendous amount of traffic, your stats will show a curve called the ‘Bottleneck curve.’ One of the major setbacks that push the scalability of your website by a mile is the number of resources it requires to run. If your site has flash components in its primary interface, or if it has a lot of design elements, it is going to require a considerable amount of space on the server. At the same time, you would also need a more substantial bandwidth connection. To avoid all these problems, make sure that your website has a simple design.
Also, you can ensure an efficient loading process for your blog, if you have better cache systems. If your user already has a little cache stored in the device memory, the website will take a lot less time to be up and running.
- Manage the ‘options table’ for the win!
In an ‘options table,’ the maximum amount of data that can be stored in a row is 4 GB. Have being said that, you don’t need to exhaust that limit. A lighter option table will reduce the amount of bandwidth your website requires at the time of loading. A lighter ‘Options table’ will mean lesser plugins and hence, lesser resources needed by your site to run.
Please make a note; Updating your’ options table’ may result in the loss of some data. Make sure you take a full back up of your website before trying to update it.
- Keep autoloaded data in check!
Autoloaded queries add a lot of convenience to your website’s basic functioning, but it can also be a significant speed killer. Make sure that you keep the count of autoloaded queries under 200, to avoid such delays and overloads. Some examples of such data can be- Basic HTML to WordPress themes.
- Unkempt hardware limitations can be a significant obstacle!
There are two types of hardware issues that you may run into when trying to scale up your website:
- Network limits
The heavier your website, the more would be the bandwidth it requires to run. Even if you don’t have a cumbersome webpage, having a network with a large bandwidth is still a good idea. This will give you more space to add some plugins and resources to your website.
Certain network providers permit you to your website to work beyond the limit, temporarily. This will help you tackle the times when the traffic is high.
- Processor limits
When we talk about a ‘processor’ in terms of a website, the references are directed towards a server. A web server is a location where your site is being hosted. If the server is more efficient and less crowded, then this will allow your website to load faster, irrespective of the number of resources or plugins that are in use. There are two main types of servers available- Shared and Dedicated. A dedicated server is a more preferred choice because it gives attention to a single website at a time, but in case you decide to choose the former, make sure that it is not overcrowded.
These were some of the primary steps involved in the process of scaling a website. Scaling is indeed an essential aspect of high traffic management for your website. Although everything from HTML to WordPress themes is available in a user-friendly interface, there are still certain aspects that require special attention.
Make sure that you maintain a suitable scale for your website.