How fast is your website? Minifying CSS files can help to speed up the loading time of a WordPress site. Minification removes unnecessary characters from code which speeds up load times and reduces file size. Minify CSS in Google Search Console and Core Vitals Minify CSS will work with you to identify, fix, and monitor any performance issues that might be hurting your search engine ranking or conversion rate.
Site speed is considered a very important ranking factor for a couple of years now. Minifying CSS and JS files is a pretty simple way to improve it.
Google PageSpeed Insights indicates that several metrics affect or relate to page speed. One of these factors is large CSS files that cause the page to load slower frustrating the user with long wait times while the website renders the content. So if your WordPress site is running slow, you may need to minify CSS files on your WordPress site.
Though minification is a straightforward process, it may end up breaking the site if not done properly. Minifying CSS in WordPress can be a bit tricky if you do it manually without the right tools.
There are many solutions to minify CSS and you may want to back up your site before you try any of them.
In this post, I will aim to explain what minification of CSS is, how it improves your site performance, and some of the best possible minification solutions for your WordPress site.
Let’s get it started.
What is Minify CSS?
Websites are made of different files, including CSS files to give the website style, they are arranged in various folders. These files contain code that determines the structure and functionality of your site. But to make your site faster and lightweight, we need to reduce the code present in these files. That’s where Minify CSS comes in.
Minifying the CSS manually is the process of removing unnecessary characters from it which will make it smaller in size and load faster. Minification does not change how a website’s layout looks but rather makes its content fewer bytes to load, thus making your WordPress site speed up with time .
As its name implies, Minify CSS is a strategy to reduce the size of your .css files by removing all the extra spaces, unnecessary comments, and unused code that’s written in your CSS file. Thus, by minification, we remove all the unwanted data from the files that don’t require the code to execute. As a result, it reduces the size of CSS files and the size of the website itself, making your site load faster than ever.
For example, you have a CSS file on your site that looks something like in the image below.
But its minified version will be something like this;
As you can see the difference, all the line breaks, unnecessary comments, spaces, and indentations are removed now. Everything unnecessary for the site function is removed, reducing the size of your CSS file. The smaller the file sizes, the faster the site speed.
Why Do You Need to Minify CSS Files?
One of the apparent reasons to minify CSS is to improve WordPress speed and performance. Minified versions of files are faster to load and boost the site’s speed providing a better user experience. It improves the user experience on your site, as the server doesn’t need to download bigger files. And most importantly, it reduces the bandwidth costs as fewer data transmits over the network.
It will also reduce errors in your Google Search Console and Core Vitals. Helping you to increase search ranking postions, traffic and conversions.
If you are trying to achieve a high score on Google PageSpeed Insight or other tools, then you should start with minifying CSS and Javascript files on your site.
Mification reduces only a kilobyte from your website’s files, and is a good start toward improving your site performance. So if you want to improve your WordPress site performance and make it faster, minifying CSS files will help you get started.
How to Minify CSS?
There are various tools and ways to minify CSS that work differently on different sites. You can minify CSS both manually and by using a plugin. I will explain both methods in detail, so you can choose the one that suits you better.
But before you start minifying your CSS files, it would be better to take a backup of unminified files. So you have a copy of the original files if anything goes wrong. Or if you have a staging site or set up a local testing environment, you should first minify the site here to make sure everything works right before making the changes to the live site.
Minifying Files Manually
If you site is not updated very often and it has a lot of static content you may want to chose to manually minify your CSS. However, minifying files manually can take a significant time, and there is more room for error. But thanks to various online minifying tools that make this method pretty easy and effortless. All you need to do is copy and paste your CSS code, and you will get the error-free minified version of your CSS files. One of the best tools to minify CSS is CSS Minifier. It is a free online tool that beautifies your CSS code by removing all the extra space, line breaks, and comments, giving a quick boost to your site speed.
Minifying Files Using Plugins
Another excellent way to minify the CSS files on your WordPress site is by using a plugin. There are several plugins in the market with millions of installations; that would love to be used your site performance. Here is a list of some of the best plugins that I have tried so far, and I would love to recommend them to you.
Merge + Minify + Refresh — WordPress Plugins
JCH Optimize
CSS Minify
Fast Velocity Minify
Autoptimize
Hummingbird Page Speed Optimization
So these are the plugins that you can use to minify files on your site. They are incredible at the job and provide great scanning features that allow you to monitor your site performance. Plus, they also offer actionable recommendations for boosting your site speed right within the plugin.
If I have missed a plugin that you would like me to add to the list feel free to reach out.
Now you have a complete understanding of how critical it is to minify the files on your site. We have also shared some of the best possible ways you can choose to speed up your site. Don’t delay it further; keep your site running faster for everyone and rank higher on google because no one likes slow websites, even Google itself.
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