Introduction
In this digital age, different businesses and individuals represent their brands through an online presence. There are different methods to create your online presence, like social media accounts, blog posts, or even your own website.
However, you should make sure to represent your online presence in the best possible way before your audience. If people face any problems getting access to your online presence, they are likely to ignore it.
Generally, people may represent their online presence through a website. However, they need to assess the various factors or elements of their website. One such important element is the loading speed of a website.
Loading Speed of A Website
The loading speed of a website is a very crucial aspect of it. Let us take a look at the importance of the loading speed of a website.
1. First of all, the loading speed of your website determines the traffic it attracts. If your website takes a long time to load, people are likely to press the back button quickly.
On the other hand, if your website loads in just a few seconds, people may think to take a glance at it.
2. Secondly, Google also considers the loading speed of a blog when deciding its rank. Loading speed has been considered a factor since 2010 for desktops and since 2018 for mobile devices.
So, if your site loads quickly, it is likely to rank on the search engine result pages (SERP).
3. The time it takes for a website to load influences how long users stay on your site and how they evaluate your brand or business. So, the speed of your site affects the UX (user experience) of the people who visit it.
So what can you do to create a fast website that can help you increase engagement metrics like bounce rates? One of the most important foundations of a WordPress website is its theme.
So you should always choose a fast WordPress theme for your website. If you select a slow-loading theme, then your website will load slowly.
No matter if you try techniques like performance optimization or caching, a slow theme always results in a slow-loading website.
The great thing about WordPress is that you do not need to spend lots of money to choose a fast loading WordPress theme. The platform provides several free, fast-loading WordPress themes to users as well.
But before getting insights, let us know the ideal time duration for which a website should load.
The Ideal Loading Time of A Website
According to Portent’s research, a website should load in an ideal amount of time, between 3 and 4 seconds. This is because if your website takes more than this time to load, users are likely to get annoyed.
They may think that instead of using your website to get information, it is better to switch to some other website. So, people should make sure that their website loads as quickly as possible.
However, the loading time of a website is dependent on several factors, like the niche of the website, the type of website, and other performance metrics.
The loading time of the website is based on various elements. Some of these include:
- The number of videos, pictures, or other media files that you include on your webpage.
- The size of all the media files, videos, and pictures on your web page.
- The plugins that are installed on your website.
- The use of a content Delivery Network (CDN).
- The theme installed on your website.
- The coding and server-side scripts of your website.
By keeping these factors under control, users can make a fast-loading website for your business. But have you ever wondered how you can check the loading speed of your WordPress theme?
There are several tools and applications for this purpose. Applications or tools like Pingdom, webpage test, GTmetrix, etc. can help you assess the loading speed of your website.
To analyze the loading speed of your website, you need to enter the URL of your site into the search bar of these tools. The applications then assess the content of your website to generate the results.
These results come along with suggestions that can help you make your websites faster to load.
The results generated include different aspects of your website, like its loading time, size, and the number of server requests that will allow loading the content of your webpage.
The best aspect of the tools is that they can also help you analyze the speed of the demo versions of the themes.
The different steps that can allow you to check your WordPress theme’s loading speed are as follows:
- First of all, the users need to enter the URL of the website they want to test.
- Second, you have to put in the closest test location and the browser you are using to test.
- Now you can click the “Start Test” button to initiate the testing process.
- Once the process starts, you need to wait for your performance results.
- When the results are out, the users can view them.
However, it is important to look at the fully loaded metric section properly. This information will tell you the number of seconds it took for your website to load.
Along with this, the metrics also tell the number of individual requests that help load your page.
Factors that Enhance the Loading Time
Different factors can help you optimize your WordPress theme for speed. Here are these elements:
1. Responsive Nature
One of the most important aspects of the theme’s speed is its responsive design. If a theme has a responsive design, it provides a fast mobile experience to the users.
The reason behind this is that responsive design helps your website load easily on different screen sizes. Due to this, you do not need a separate version of your mobile website.
Let us understand the concept behind this. If a WordPress theme is responsive, then Google’s crawler will glance through your website only once.
On the other hand, if you have a different version of your WordPress theme for different devices, then the content of your website needs to be duplicated for the mobile version. This results in more maintenance and bandwidth.
Hence, the major reason for the fast theme due to the responsive design is that such a design requires just a single set of code.
2. Asynchronous Loading of Java Script and CSS
JavaScript and CSS codes are quite essential for a theme. These codes help make your webpage interactive and appealing. However, the presence of JavaScript and CSS files can even slow down your website.
These codes load in two ways: synchronously and asynchronously. When the files load synchronously, this means each file loads at once in the order in which it appears on the web page.
So, as soon as a script comes in, the browser will stop loading the other aspects of the page. But the loading process will restart once the script has been loaded completely.
On the other hand, when the files load asynchronously, it means all these files load at once. So, this can help speed up the loading time of your site.
It is for this reason that if your files load asynchronously, your website can be faster as compared to when the file is loaded synchronously.
3. Lightweight
The loading time of your website also depends on the nature of the theme. The themes that have very high-quality images, files, and effects in them can be quite heavy.
The reason behind this is that high-quality images have large file sizes. At the same time, effective animations require code scripts and files. All these aspects can affect the loading speed of your website.
So it is always advisable to choose simple and lightweight themes. These themes load quickly and can also allow you to add more features. Users can do this by adding additional plugins or custom CSS.
4. HTTP Requests
Each HTTP request also counts toward the loading time of your website. The HTTP requests may relate to different images, fonts, script style sheets, etc.
So as your website grows and attracts more traffic, it is likely to receive more HTTP requests. Due to this, the loading time of the website may increase gradually.
The speed of the website depends not only on the number of HTTP requests but also on the size of these requests. The size of the files that are transferred determines the speed at which your page loads.
So if your theme is lightweight, then it will receive fewer HTTP requests.
Hence, this makes the theme faster to load. You can always know the number of HTTP requests used by a theme with the help of the different speed testing tools explained above.
5. Compression
As the name suggests, compressing means reducing the file size of your website. When you reduce the file sizes, your website can easily transfer the files to different browsers.
Hence, if there is less data to transfer, then your website is likely to load quickly on the browsers.
One of the most popular methods of compressing data is GZIP. This method’s popularity stems from the fact that it can help you compress data by up to 70%.
Moreover, this method also uses less time and resources compared to the other methods. So if a theme compresses the data of your content with GZIP, then your website is likely to load faster.
Mentioned above are some of the factors that determine the loading speed of your theme. Once you assess the different themes for these factors and choose the right one, you can optimize your websites for speed.
Choose the Fastest WordPress Theme in 2023
1. Hello Elementor
You may be getting a little hint from the name of this WordPress theme.
The creators of Elementor built it, and as we all know, Elementor Page Builder is a tool for quickly and easily building WordPress websites. Similarly, Hello Elementor is a lightweight, fast, and versatile theme.
As the name suggests, Hello Elementor can integrate with Elementor. This allows users to create different types of websites with the help of this page builder.
With a clean interface, Hello Elementor has simple and minimalistic files. The built-in tools of the theme also assist users in creating their landing pages.
Other page builder elements of the theme include videos, posts, portfolios, spacers, headings, Google Maps, and so on.
Features:
- It is a fast, lightweight WordPress theme with no styling specifically designed for the Elementor Page Builder.
- It is compatible with numerous plugins such as WooCommerce, Yoast, and WPML that extend its functionality
- The theme’s drag and drop capabilities allow users to easily and quickly create custom designs from scratch
- It supports RTL so users can design multilingual sites in any language
- Its pre-built tools make it well-suited for creating stunning landing pages
- Hello Elementor makes it easy to achieve professional results without having to invest time in coding
This theme is renowned for its lightweight files that guarantee a faster experience, and test scores demonstrate just that.
Pricing:
- Hello Elementor is a free theme and the Elementor Page Builder can also be downloaded for free.
- If you want extra templates and widgets, you can purchase the paid plan for as low as $49/year.
2. Blocksy
With a minimalist user interface, Blocksy is a multi-purpose, fast-loading WordPress theme. The drag-and-drop functionality of the theme allows you to easily design your web pages.
Not only this, but the theme is quite flexible. It helps the users modify different aspects of their website, like the colour, font, and layout options.
Features:
- The high speed of the theme is due to its clean code and code-splitting feature.
- The code-splitting feature allows JavaScript to load only when it is needed.
- Besides the fast nature of the theme, another advantage of Blocksy is its seven starter site models.
- The theme helps the users create these starter sites in different niches like applications, blogs, review websites, eCommerce stores, etc.
- Blocksy can also be integrated with other popular page builders. It can help you create your online store with the help of the WooCommerce functionality.
- Since the theme is highly responsive and SEO-friendly, you are likely to attract more traffic to your website built using this theme.
Pricing:
With so many advantages, you can use this Gutenberg-ready WordPress theme. To get access to the theme, the users need to subscribe to its different plans.
<th “>Plan <th “>Price <th “>Feature<td “>Personal Plan <td “>$49/year <td “>
- Ideal for personal use.
- One-sited licenses to the users.
<td “>Professional Plan <td “>$69/year <td “>
- Ideal for online businesses.
- Provides five site licenses.
<td “>Agency Plan <td “>$99/year <td “>
- Ideal for agencies and freelancers.
- Provides unlimited site license.
3. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is one of the fastest themes on the market. The theme has a sleek design with several versatile options.
The credibility of Generate Press is also verified by the fact that it has more than 1,000 ratings and reviews. The platform has more than 60,000 happy customers and 200,000 active websites.
Features:
- It offers a simple and intuitive platform for creating your website with creative styling, giving you the freedom to adjust colours and typographies according to your unique vision.
- Its plugin compatibility ensures that all of your website’s functionalities will remain intact, allowing you to get the most out of every feature.
- Designed by SEO experts with high-level security features included, Generate Press is the perfect option for businesses looking to improve their online visibility while keeping their data secure.
- Completely compatible with popular page builders, Generate Press allows for a hassle-free process when it comes to creating your ideal website and getting up and running quickly.
Pricing:
With so many features, users may download the free version of the website. They can even use its premium version.
The premium version has additional features like more modules for colour, demo, typography, and so on. It costs $49.95.
4. Zakra
Zakra is a popular website theme from ThemeGrill that’s known for its many features and customization options. It has an extensive list of free features, like advanced header styles, blogging tools, WooCommerce support, and more.
Plus, if you ever get stuck or have any questions, Zakra also provides excellent customer service and lots of helpful tutorials.
Features:
- Zakra is a powerful theme and page builder that equips users with the tools to build stunning, professional websites.
- With Zakra’s header module, you can create custom headers, insert buttons, and control transparency.
- It boasts an impressive library of pre-made templates designed for a wide variety of webpages, from dentists to weddings.
- It also offers optimized SEO features to help your website achieve higher rankings on search engine results pages.
- Enhance your website’s look with Zakra’s typography options, featuring hundreds of different fonts and variations.
- Elevate your website design and attract visitors with Zakra’s high-quality demos and features.
Pricing:
For your website’s design needs, Zakra theme provides a free version and a premium version for $49 per year.
5. Socially Viral
Specifically designed to create a viral content website, Socially Viral is another fast magazine-style theme. The users can create an organized, appealing, and engaging website with the help of this theme.
Features:
- Socially Viral helps attract viral traffic to your website. One of the major factors in attracting a larger audience is the speed at which your content loads.
- Another unique aspect of the theme is that it has a higher total page size as compared to the other themes mentioned in our list.
However, the theme is still quite fast. The reason behind this is that the theme hides the major content behind the “load more” button.
Pricing:
With so many advantages and features, you can use this lightweight theme to create your website.
The theme has a 4.5-star rating along with 300 reviews. In case you like the theme, you can opt for its demo version. The demo version will help you test the features of the theme.
If you like the different parts of Socially Viral, you could sign up to become a member. Under the membership, the users get access to the premium plugins and themes of the plan.
Under the present sale, the membership costs $99.00 for unlimited websites. This plan also provides the user with an instant download along with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
6. Airi
Airi is the ideal WordPress theme for any business or freelancer looking to create a stunning website.
It has all the features you need – from pre-built Elementor layouts to WooCommerce integration – to get your website running quickly and easily. With Airi, building an impressive online presence is just a few clicks away.
Features:
- Airi is equipped with powerful Elementor compatibility which enables users to create unique designs without coding skills.
- WooCommerce integration allows users to build impressive eCommerce stores with ease.
- Users have access to a wide range of options via the Theme Customizer that can expand customization possibilities.
- Google Fonts ensures a vast selection of font styles and types for styling your website.
- With the provided demos, Airi takes away the hassle of starting from a blank page and allows you to tweak pre-built designs.
- Airi offers complete translation support with fully prepared localization files.
Pricing:
Airi’s prices start at $59/year for a single plugin, and you can also get yearly access for just $99/year or lifetime access for only $249/year! Get ready to unlock the full potential of Airi today.
7. Astra
Astra is a popular choice among WordPress users looking to create their own website. With over 1 million users, this platform offers pre-made website templates for a variety of industries that are ready to go live after installation.
So, you don’t have to do much work to enjoy an aesthetically pleasing and fully functioning website.
Features:
- Astra is a customizable WordPress theme that allows users to make changes without any coding knowledge.
- Design your website with freedom as Astra provides options to switch off page titles and sidebars, as well as create full-width pages.
- Enjoy high performance with Astra’s lightweight code, since it uses Vanilla JavaScript instead of jQuery.
- Astra integrates seamlessly with the most popular tools and page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, WooCommerce, and more.
- Make the best use of your time and resources with Astra’s easy setup and customizable features
Pricing:
Astra offers an economical package of $59 for a year. For agencies, we have two bundles to choose from, with prices of $276 or $523 for a year.
8. The Gem
The Gem is a top-selling multi-purpose WordPress theme that provides some powerful elements to its users.
With more than 400 design templates, you can choose any design of the theme according to the requirements of your website. All you need to do is import the design with a single click.
Features:
- The Visual Composer plugin helps you customize the design templates you receive. This built-in plugin consists of more than 250 styling elements and more than 150 design options.
- The best advantage of The Gem is that it will help you attract a larger audience to your website. This is because The Gem is retina ready and fully responsive.
- The gem also has clean and SEO-friendly code. This helps make the websites load quickly.
Pricing:
If you like the theme, you can opt for its plans. The paid version of the theme is the regular license version. The cost of this plan is $59 for six months. You can also extend the support to 12 months if you pay an additional sum of $17.63.
9. Page Builder Framework
Page Builder Framework is designed for the modern WordPress user, featuring a minimalistic design and lightning-fast loading speeds. Its core features make it one of the most versatile and advanced themes available today.
Features:
- It offers unlimited customization options for creating and editing your website from the WP Customizer interface.
- Experience superb mobile responsiveness as this WordPress theme is 100% mobile-friendly, displaying stunningly on all devices and screen sizes.
- Ideal for developers, as you can extend your page using hooks and optimize your workflow with Gulp, BrowserSync, or Sass.
- Translation-ready, supporting popular multilingual plugins such as Polylang and WPML.
- Fully integrated with the WordPress Gutenberg Editor.
- Lightweight, fast, and easy to customize, following the latest standards and practices.
Pricing:
You can access the core version of Page Builder Framework for free, or upgrade to the premium version for only $68. For more options, check out the agency bundle for just $224 — a great deal for the features included!
10. Parallax Pro
With a fully loaded time of 1.537 seconds on the test webpage, Parallax Pro is a beautiful theme. The theme is specially built for the Genesis Framework and consists of an appealing package of templates.
Features:
- The name of the theme quite clearly explains its purpose. The theme adds a parallax effect to the websites created using it.
- The theme can help you organize the content of your website. This is possible because the layout allows the users to divide the different sections of their pages. This makes it easy to organise large amounts of content into small blocks.
- The speed of Parallax Pro is quite fast. The incredibly fast speed of Parallax Pro is because it uses GZIP compression and asynchronous JavaScript loading.
Pricing:
If you like the different features of the theme, you can subscribe to it.
The theme comes at a price of 99.95 dollars. You can also opt for the live demo of the theme.
11. OceanWP
With more than 2,600,000 downloads, OceanWP is one of the fastest-growing themes for WordPress. Since the theme helps create fast-loading websites, it is an ideal choice for different developers.
Developers and other bloggers can use this theme to create professional-looking websites for their businesses or other purposes.
Once you use the theme, you can also find certain attractive demos that can help industries and companies related to different niches. The companies can use these demos in relation to their fitness clubs, chocolate businesses, or shoe stores.
Features:
- OceanWP is designed to deliver an unbeatable experience on any device, making it the perfect choice for creating a captivating website.
- This theme offers advanced built-in SEO features to help you rank higher on SERPs.
- You can easily translate content into any language with OceanWP’s support of RTL languages.
- An impressive selection of extensions are available for customization so you can build the exact website you envision.
- King Composer, Elementor, and Beaver Builder are just some of the powerful tools available to enhance your site.
Pricing:
Ocean WP is an amazing WordPress plugin with both free and premium options. Their yearly prices start at $39 and go up to $129, so there’s something for every budget. Plus, it’s incredibly fast!
12. Newspaper
With 39 free pre-built website templates, Newspaper is a great theme for you to create your WordPress website in minutes.
The theme provides a perfect mixture of lightweight framework and enhanced performance, along with fully customizable templates to the users.
Features:
- Since Newspaper has a clean user interface, the theme is quite fast to load.
- With more than 100,000 happy customers, Newspaper has eight premium plugins included.
- The theme can be integrated with WooCommerce, Instagram, BuddyPress, BBPress forums, etc.
- It is mobile and AMP-ready and GDPR-compliant.
Pricing:
If you like the different elements of Newspaper, then you can purchase it for $59.
13. Schema
With a clean and professional user interface, Schema is known for its quick loading speeds. The quick loading speed of Schema is because the theme has a few HTTP requests, fewer elements, and deferred loading Java Script.
The best element of the theme is its fully responsive layout. This layout makes it easy for your website to operate on different devices.
So if you have a target audience that uses several devices like tablets, mobile phones, or computers, they can easily get access to your website.
Features:
- Schema is an ideal choice for content marketers as it offers a highly responsive and visually appealing layout.
- The theme is compatible with WooCommerce, allowing you to easily set up a shop section on your website.
- Schema is translation friendly, supporting all RTL scripts.
- Reap the benefits of regular updates from the developers without any additional costs.
- Stay informed and engaged through Schema’s helpful widgets such as Related Posts and Google Forms.
- Achieve custom designs using icon fonts that come pre-installed with the theme.
Pricing:
The Schema theme won’t cost you a single penny – it’s absolutely free!
14. Neve
With a total page size of 29.9 KB, Neve is an ultra-fast WordPress theme. Due to its speed, the theme competes with Generate Press.
Being a multi-purpose WordPress theme, Neve also has a number of pre-built demo websites and customizer controls.
One of the best advantages of Neve is that it focuses more on mobile devices. The theme loads quickly and easily on mobile devices, which makes it easy for people to use.
It is also compatible with AMP, which helps generate a user-friendly interface.
Features:
- Neve gives you a wide range of options to customize your site’s layout according to your preferences, making it perfect for freelancers and hobbyists.
- Don’t worry about the size – the Neve theme is incredibly lightweight, with the total WordPress install only 28 KB!
- You have access to over 80 production-ready website templates that help you quickly get started on your page.
- The Blog Booster feature helps you expand your blogging options with thumbnails, metadata, and layouts.
- You also have complete control over customizing the design of the header and footer for a unique look.
Overall, Neve provides a comprehensive set of features tailor-made for creating unique websites in no time!
Pricing:
Neve is a free tool, but you can upgrade to the premium version for an extra cost of just $49.
Unlock even more amazing features when you invest in Neve!
Let Us Sum It Up!
So before choosing any WordPress theme, you need to look out for different elements. These elements include the price, design, functionality, templates, layout options etc.
However, it is also very crucial to assess the loading time of the theme which you choose.
This article explains in detail the different fast loading WordPress themes. Before choosing any theme, you need to consider its loading time on different speed testing applications.
The File Size of the theme along with its HTTP requests also determine its loading speed. Once you choose an ideal WordPress theme that is optimised for speed, you can boost up your search engine rankings and generate more traffic.
One of the best aspects of the lightning-fast WordPress themes is that all the faster loading WordPress themes are not paid. You can also choose the free version of these themes.
Once you testify the elements in the free version and you think that the theme is suitable for your website, you can opt for its paid or premium version.
