Optimize WordPress : Speed And Performance

Do you want to make you WordPress blog load faster than ever before. If yes then you need to optimize WordPress along with its database, your themes and htacess files. In this guide I will also provide you with some free stuffs and service which can dramatically decrease your page load time.

Considering the current SEO scenario its really important to serve your content to visitors really fast. And if they are refereed by search engines then your blog or website should load instantly.

Now you must ask Why?

So the answer is : Google have already said that they take page-load time as one of the factor while ranking any domain’s webpage on results. They also track the bounce rate. If you pages doesn’t load within 2 seconds maximum, then usually your visitors will start loosing their patience. And finally they will leave you or press the back button. This is really going to affect your overall performance, since Google trace these activities.

Get Better Speed : Lets Optimize WordPress

Our very first step is to create the backup before making any changes. Actually their will be no problem. But still we should be ready for any unknown problems. So I will suggest you to use a plugin called WP-DB-Backup.

Or if you have dropbox account ( with free membership you get 2gb cloud storage ) you can use BackWPup. With it you can backup your complete Blog directory files.

Database Optimization :

Its the most important part of your wordpress based blog. All your comments, subscriber’s list, posts and Plugins activities are stored here.[do action="add-adsense-338"/]

But sometimes the tables in MYSQL are not arranged properly and thus increase the response time. Also remember that the more comments, the more plugins you use, the greater will be the size of your database.

Tips To Manage Comments :

Instead of storing the comments on your server, its always better to use some other service. You can install Disqus. Its one of the most popular comment management service and also gives lots of security and moderation options. The best part is, the spam comments are not stored locally.

So here are the steps to be taken :

• Remove all your spam and pending comments. You can use the plugin called Bulk Delete
• Remove all the drafts on which you are not going to work anymore
• Make sure to use some external membership management site ( MailChimp or similar ). Free upto 1000 subscribers
• Make sure to use Database optimization plugin like : WP-Optimize, TentBlogger Optimize WordPress Database, WP Database Cleaner

Optimize WordPress Themes :

You theme contains lots of CSS and JavaScript files. According to me, they all need to be optimized for better performance. If you are using Thesis theme, then you don’t need to get involved in this process.

We will use minification Process: In this process all the spaces, line breaks and comments are removed from the code. Even the color codes are compressed in-order to optimize the themes. The size of the fonts will be reduced, the import function will be added to the head section and many more. This method can help you reduce the file size by 10% to 35%.

Using CSS Minify Tools :

But if you have some designer and elegant looking theme, then get prepared :

• The very first is to select the files.

Their are many templates which gives you option to select different skins. But why to carry all of them if you are going to use only one of them. If you are a web designer, then you can simply edit the files. ( else leave it )

I have already added the video tutorial for better understanding

• If you theme is mobile responsive, then you need to take precautions.
• Now you have to find Code comments something like : /* Responsive Design—— */ in you stylesheet.css
• If you are able to get it, then cut whole of the area from that place to bottom.
• Paste it to some other file.
• Now copy the rest of the css file and move to CSS-Compressor

• From code layout select High ( Moderate Readability, smaller size )
• From options : select “Preserve CSS”
• Then finally select “output as file”

Amazingly we have reduced 14 percent of the file size. See the video below :

JavaScript Files

Your theme must be using different types of java files in-order to run sliders, drop down menus and other extra custom features. Then you also have many plugins, and they too use many other JavaScript files from their own folders. All of these files totally contribute more than 50 to 60 percent of your total page size.[do action="add-adsense-338-right"/]

Main reason for increased size is the use of same JavaScript multiple time, but calling them individually from your directory. So your header requests increases and the also the response time increases. In order to optimize their size, you can use plugin Use Google Libraries

Now instead of calling the same files multiples times, they are called once from the Google’s Global CDN.

Using The CDN

You can use CDN to achieve better performance. You can move with Cloudflare. They are free to use service and provides much more security and option options then any one else in this whole world. Cloudflare is used by more numbers of users compared to combining the whole of the CDN family in this world.

Check this post : Best CDN for WordPress

Caching For Better Performance

Caching is really necessary for WordPress based blogs. Since your site is going to generate the dynamic content, so its necessary to generate the static HTML content for every page. So now instead of looking into database every time in order to generate content, these static files will be presented to your visitors and readers.

You can use plugins like W3Total Cache or WPSuper Cache for best results. ( Click Links For Complete Guide )

Optimizing The Images

[do action="add-adsense-338"/]Images plays the important role in increasing your response time. Its common to see that HTML are used to resize the images. But actually they are just resized, and in the background, your readers have to download the whole of the image ( and they might be of 100KB or 3MB )

In such cases you can use crop features already provided in WordPress image editor. You may also use free tools like Google Picasa or GIMP for better lossless optimization.

Theirs also a plugin called smush.it . Actually its a service provided provided by yahoo. It compress the images without reducing its quality.

I wish you my guide will help you for blogging experience. Please leave your suggestions and questions.

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W3 Total Cache Setup Guide Updated 2012 Using Dropbox As CDN Using Google Drive As CDN Pligins To Make Your Blog Load Faster Best Image SEO Tips To Optimize For Google Image Search