Methods to optimize your WordPress site does not rely on plug-ins include: 1. Use lightweight themes, such as Astra or GeneratePress, to avoid pile-up themes; 2. Manually compress and merge CSS and JS files to reduce HTTP requests; 3. Optimize images before uploading, use WebP format and control file size; 4. Configure .htaccess to enable browser caching, and connect to CDN to improve static resource loading speed; 5. Limit article revisions and regularly clean database redundant data.

Want to optimize your WordPress site but don't want to use plugins? In fact, many performance optimization tasks can be completed through manual settings and some basic operations. Without installing a bunch of plug-ins, the website can also run faster and more stable.

1. Use lightweight themes

WordPress themes have a great impact on loading speed. Many free or feature-packed themes will introduce a lot of unnecessary CSS, JS and image resources.

• Choose a theme with simple structure and clean code , such as Astra (free version), GeneratePress, or default themes such as Twenty Twenty-Four.
• Avoid using "all-round" themes , which often come with various page builders and style libraries, which can easily slow down the website.
• Check the performance score of the topic and use PageSpeed ??Insights or Lighthouse to test the home page loading performance.

If you are not sure how to choose, start with the official recommended quick theme and then customize it as needed.

2. Compress and merge static resources (CSS/JS)

Although there are no plugins, you can manually compress and merge static files to reduce the number of requests.

• Use online tools to compress CSS and JS files , such as CSS Miniifier and JS Compressor.
• Merge multiple CSS or JS into one file to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
• If you are familiar with the use of child theme, you can put the compressed code into functions.php and load it through wp_enqueue_style and wp_enqueue_script .

Note: Before merging, make sure that there is no conflict between scripts, otherwise the page elements may not be displayed normally.

3. Image optimization is the key

Images are often the heaviest part of the web page, especially without compression.

• You can compress the image before uploading , and you can use free tools such as TinyPNG or Squoosh.
• Using WebP format , it is smaller than JPEG/PNG and is not bad in quality. Many browsers now support it.
• Set image size limits to avoid uploading oversized images and scaling them with CSS, which not only wastes bandwidth but also affects loading.

If you don’t want to change the format, at least you must make the image size reasonable and control the single picture size to be within 100KB.

4. Utilize browser cache and CDN

Even without plug-ins, you can enable browser caching by configuring the .htaccess file.

• Add the following to the .htaccess file:

 ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##

• If you have a budget, you can access a free CDN, such as Cloudflare. It can automatically compress resources, cache static content, and improve access speed.

5. Clean up useless data and restrict article revisions

WordPress saves multiple revisions of each article by default, and the database will become bloated over time.

• Add this line of code to wp-config.php , limiting the maximum number of revisions to keep:

 define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

• Regularly clean post meta and comment data, you can manually delete useless records through phpMyAdmin, or write a simple SQL script to execute.

Basically these are the methods. Not complicated, but easily overlooked. As long as you insist on doing a few basic actions, you can significantly improve WordPress performance and do not rely on plug-ins.

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