How to Enable GZIP Compression in WordPress: The Complete Guide

Do you want to speed up your WordPress site?

One easy way is to enable GZIP compression.

GZIP compresses your web pages which makes them much smaller and faster to load.

In this complete guide, I‘ll explain everything you need to know about GZIP compression and how to enable it in WordPress.

After 15 years as a WordPress expert, I‘ve seen GZIP compression improve page load times by 50-70%.

By the end, you‘ll know exactly how to setup GZIP compression to create a blazing fast WordPress site.

Let‘s get started!

What is GZIP Compression?

GZIP is a compression algorithm that shrinks text files like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images.

It does this by:

• Removing unnecessary data
• Substituting repetitive text with placeholders
• Reorganizing the file structure

This results in much smaller file sizes.

When a user requests a page from your site, the GZIP compressed files are sent from your web server.

The browser then uncompresses these files before displaying the page.

GZIP compression is supported by all modern browsers and web servers. Enabling it only takes a few minutes but offers huge performance benefits.

How Much Does GZIP Compression Speed Up WordPress?

So exactly how much faster does enabling GZIP make your WordPress site?

Here are some real-world statistics:

• HTML files compressed by up to 70%
• CSS files compressed by up to 80%
• JavaScript files compressed by up to 45%
• PNG/JPG images compressed by up to 25%

This means your WordPress pages become much smaller and faster to load.

Specific improvements you can expect:

• Faster page load times – Pages with compressed files load significantly quicker. This directly speeds up your site.

• Reduced server load – Smaller files use less bandwidth and put less strain on your hosting.

• Better user experience – Faster sites have higher user satisfaction and engagement.

• Higher ad revenue – Quicker loading pages allow ads to load faster increasing impressions.

• Improved SEO – Google ranks faster loading sites higher in search results.

Clearly, enabling GZIP compression improves WordPress performance across the board.

Why You Must Enable GZIP Compression

There are a few key reasons why enabling GZIP compression is so important:

1. Faster Page Speed

Speed is a major factor in search engine rankings, user experience, and conversions.

GZIP compression directly improves page load times making your entire WordPress site much faster.

Google recommends enabling compression to optimize site speed. Faster sites improve user satisfaction and your SERP rankings.

2. Reduce Server Load

Uncompressed content requires more bandwidth and server resources to deliver.

When you enable compression, your hosting server has to do less work to serve WordPress pages.

Less strain on your server means improved stability and lower hosting costs.

3. Mobile Performance

Sites without compression load slower on mobile devices with limited bandwidth.

GZIP compression minimizes file sizes so your content loads quickly on all devices.

This helps provide a seamless experience for your mobile visitors.

4. It‘s Free!

Enabling GZIP compression is 100% free and easy to implement in WordPress.

It provides one of the biggest speed boosts available through free optimization.

There‘s no reason all sites shouldn‘t enable compression.

Now let‘s go over how to enable GZIP compression in WordPress.

3 Ways to Enable GZIP Compression

There are a few different methods you can use to enable GZIP compression for WordPress:

1. Use WP Rocket Plugin (Easiest Method)

The best way is to use WP Rocket. This is the most popular WordPress caching and performance plugin with over 1 million active installs.

WP Rocket enables GZIP compression automatically with no configuration needed in most cases.

To setup GZIP compression:

1. Install and activate WP Rocket plugin.
2. Go to Settings → WP Rocket.
3. The status message confirms compression is active by default.

That‘s it! WP Rocket handles enabling and managing GZIP compression for you out of the box.

We recommend WP Rocket as the fastest way to enable compression in WordPress.

2. Use WP Super Cache Plugin

Another option is the WP Super Cache plugin. This free caching plugin has GZIP functionality built-in.

To enable compression with WP Super Cache:

1. Install and activate WP Super Cache.
2. Go to Settings → WP Super Cache.
3. On the Advanced tab enable Compress pages.
4. Click Update Status to save settings.

WP Super Cache will now compress your WordPress site with GZIP.

3. Use W3 Total Cache Plugin

W3 Total Cache is a customizable caching plugin for WordPress. It comes with compression support as well.

To enable GZIP compression in W3 Total Cache:

1. Install and activate W3 Total Cache.
2. Go to Performance → General Settings.
3. Enable Browser Cache in the options.
4. Click Save to apply settings.

GZIP compression is now active for your WordPress site.

We recommend the plugins above as the easiest way to enable compression in WordPress.

How to Verify GZIP Compression is Working

Once enabled, how can you check that GZIP is working properly?

There are two easy ways to verify compression is active:

1. Use Online GZIP Checker

Tools like GZIP Checker analyze responses from your server.

Input your URL and it will confirm if compression is enabled:

2. Faster Page Load Times

More importantly, you should notice faster load times across your WordPress site.

Use PageSpeed Insights or webpagetest.org to measure improvements after enabling GZIP.

If speeds improved significantly, then you know compression is working properly.

Now let‘s go over some additional tips to further optimize WordPress performance.

7 More Tips to Optimize WordPress Speed

Enabling GZIP compression is one of the most impactful optimizations for WordPress.

But it‘s just one piece of improving site speed.

Here are 7 more tips to make your WordPress site even faster:

• Enable Caching – Use a caching plugin like WP Rocket or enable server-side caching. Cached pages load instantly.

• Minify Resources – Minify HTML, CSS, JS, and SVG files to remove unnecessary whitespace and characters.

• Optimize Images – Compress and resize images for lower file sizes.

• Limit Plugins – Remove unnecessary plugins that slow down your site.

• Upgrade Web Hosting – Use optimized WordPress hosting for fast performance.

• Improve Code – Follow best coding practices to keep your site speedy.

• Check Metrics – Monitor speed with PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom Tools.

Combined with GZIP compression, these tips will make your WordPress site incredibly fast.

Conclusion

Optimizing your WordPress site speed is crucial for providing a good user experience and better search rankings.

Implementing GZIP compression is one of the most effective ways to speed up WordPress performance.

It compresses your web pages which significantly reduces file sizes and page loading times.

In this guide, we covered everything you need to know about enabling GZIP compression in WordPress:

• How GZIP compression works and the performance benefits.

• Detailed instructions for enabling compression using WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, or W3 Total Cache.

• How to verify compression is active and working properly.

• Additional speed tips to make your site even faster.

Compressing resources with GZIP should be on every WordPress site owner‘s list.

It only takes a few minutes to enable but provides an immediate boost in speed.

So try enabling GZIP compression on your WordPress site today!

Let me know if you have any other questions in the comments. I‘m happy to help get your site faster.