Are you having problems with a slow-loading website? Then perhaps you should consider applying the concept of lazy-loading. It is when content only loads on a page when a user wants it to; specifically when users scroll down on a web page to view that piece of content. As a result, the total size of your website is reduced, allowing it to load at a faster pace than before.
If you have a WordPress website that makes use of high-quality images, videos and photo galleries and wish to reduce its loading speed, then this is the article for you. Fortunately, the WordPress plugin repository has a slew of lazy loading plugins that this article covers for you.
Lazy Load
Lazy Load by Mohammad Jangda, relies on jQuery Sonar to view images for users when the images are visible in front of them. The plugin uses this to run Ajax calls to decrease page size and load times for images.
The plugin has been built on a code by Automattic’s WordPress.com VIP team. It might not have a lot of options but it gets the job of fast loading time done.
BJ Lazy Load
BJ Lazy Loud is another popular lazy loading plugin that replaces all of your website and blog’s images, thumbnails, content iframes and gravatar images with a placeholder and only loads content upon user navigation. By working with iframes, the plugin covers embedded videos from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and more.
The plugin is also compatible with the RICG Responsive Images plugin to optimize images to be responsive.
Many WordPress users use this plugin because it is easy to setup, customize, supports dynamic embeds and CDN-powered images. BJ Lazy Load is also very clean and won’t affect user experience.
a3 Lazy Load
a3 Lazy Load has been built to optimize extremely content-heavy images on websites. Which means that no matter how much content your website has, even with over 1000 images on a single page, this plugin will accurately optimize it. Interestingly, the plugin is fully-featured and very easy to set up.
A3 Lazy Load also gets frequent updates from developers and was created for a vast mobile support. The plugin is also built on the Lazy Load XT jQuery plugin that is a highly-trusted resource. Other than images, you can also apply lazy loading on comments and avatars.
WordPress Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll is a relatively new lazy loading plugin, but it has already made large waves by lazy loading posts, videos, images, posts and pages with Ajax-powered queries.
You can use the Ajax Load More shortcode builder to build complex custom WordPress queries and then add the shortcode to the content editor or into your template files.
The plugin enables you to manage repeater templates on all of your WordPress websites and blogs.
Speed Up
Speed Up may be 5KB light, but it implements lazy loading on pictures, videos and more with ease. Only when users scroll down will other forms of content will be generated. Not only does it allow your web page to load faster, but it also saves up bandwidth as well.
Lazy Loading Responsive Images
If you want a plugin that you can customize, then this is the plugin for you. It lazy loads images in posts, post thumbnails, custom post types, etc. Like every other plugin, this one also requires Javascript. That’s why it has a noscript tag as backup. It will still load images with responsive placeholders until visitors scroll down the page.
You can also add certain images in the customizer (Appearance › Customize › Lazy loading options) if you wish to disable lazy loading. The data-no-lazyload function also comes in handy for this.
Lazy Load by WP Rocket
Here is another remarkable lazy loading plugin that you should try. Like other plugins in this list, it only loads images and iframes on a web page when users scroll down to them. This decreases the number of HTTP requests and thus reduces a website’s loading speed.
The plugin works especially on thumbnails, post images, avatars, widget text and more. In addition, the plugin also a javascript library such as jQuery and the weight of the script is less than 10KB.
JCH Optimize
Even though JCH Optimize is a plugin built to improve your WordPress website’s SEO, it also includes the function of lazy loading. It has a number of features, most prominently automatically combining CSS and JS files to reduce the number of browser HTTP requests to download your web page. The JS and CSS files can be further optimized by minifying and compressing them into a gzip.
The plugin includes a lazy load image feature and the best part is that this plugin can be setup with a single click. This is indeed a great resource not just for lazy loading but also optimizing your site for SEO purposes.
Lazy Load for Videos
Lazy Load for Videos replaces any embedded video from either YoutTube or Vimeo with a preview image that can be opened with a single click. Not only does it improve your web page’s loading speed, but it also improves your Google PageSpeed Score as well.
By using JQuery and without Javascript being used to play videos, your website’s loading speed vastly improves. In addition, you can also customize the player embeds with specific controls and hide annotations to avoid distractions.
Featured Image From URL
This plugin lazy loads videos and images to make your homepage load faster and so much more. The plugin lets you use an external image as a featured image for your page, post or custom post type. It also has social tags for all included content that make it shareable on all social networks.
Crazy Lazy
Crazy Lazy is a light plugin that lazy loads images quite efficiently. The plugin has a very clean design and does not require any additional options to activate it. It accurately optimizes all of the images on your website to prevent them from loading all at once. Thus, you can save up on site performance and bandwidth.
Conclusion
I hope by now you have been satisfied with all the lazy load plugins that have been mentioned in this article. Normally, whichever of these you pick, will be good for your website. If there are other plugins that I have failed to account for, do let me know in the comments below.
