Being lazy is good. I said it. No, I’m not talking about sitting on your couch binge-watching TV shows all day. I’m talking about deciding to lazy load WordPress comments and images to boost your page load times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Page Load time is one of the key metrics you need to pay attention to when it comes to your WordPress site. Even if you’ve already implemented our basic tips for speeding up WordPress<\/a> (and our list of even more speed tips<\/a>), you can still take load time reduction a step further with lazy loading<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this post, I’ll explain lazy loading \ud83e\udda5 and its benefits and then show you exactly how to lazy load WordPress images and comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \ud83d\udcda Table of contents<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t be put off by the name! Though laziness is commonly associated with negativity, it’s truly not a bad thing in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lazy loading works by delaying loading certain elements on your website until they’re absolutely needed. It makes them…lazy. They sit around doing nothing until a user starts scrolling down the page. Then, they jump into action as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take your WordPress comments section as an example…<\/p>\n\n\n\n In pretty much every WordPress theme that I’ve ever looked at, the comments section is at the bottom of the post. Usually, it requires scrolling at least a few page lengths to reach the comments. So what’s the point in loading comments right away?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lazy loading says there is no point. Instead, lazy loading only loads such elements once a reader starts scrolling down the page (which is the only time they’re actually needed). \ud83d\udc0c<\/p>\n\n\n Lazy loading WordPress elements is primarily about page speed. You can seriously speed up the initial page load times for your sites with lazy loading. Of course, those elements will need to be loaded eventually, but your reader won’t know that the page isn’t fully loaded when they first arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider this fact:<\/p>\n\n\n\n On average, the majority of a web page’s file size is comprised of images. In fact, the largest increase in web page size from 2012 to 2022 was due to the use of images. [1]<\/sup>. So by lazy loading your already-optimized images<\/a>, you’re delaying the need to load a majority of your site’s page size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is lazy loading?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why lazy load WordPress comments and images?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n