An Ultimate Guide to Make your WordPress Blog Faster

Sometimes back, I’ve described how to reduce the page load time and speed up your WordPress blog. But, there are some more issues still left behind. You can improve the page load time optimizing images and CSS. But, when your blog grows by leaps and bound, you will notice that the page load time has increased proportionally.  Now a day, Google is considering the page load time as one of the main search ranking factors. Therefore, you must concentrate on this matter seriously.

At first, find out the reasons responsible for page load time. The best tool to test your page speed is Page Speed. It’s a simple add-on available for Firefox. Install the add-on and analyze the performance. Another great online tool is tool.pingdom.com. Pingdom checks your site as it loads in the browser and serve the performance result of each part of your page. Click here to check the performance of your site.

After analyzing the site performance, you can decide which part should be optimized. The most general factors are the following:

1. HTTP request from the client side: At the time of page load, most of the browsers support only a limited no of HTTP requests at a time. Firefox or Internet Explorer supports a maximum of 8-10 HTTP requests. But generally, the number of HTTP requests is more than that limit. Hosting of images of your post in the main address increases the no of HTTP requests. You can reduce the number wisely by hosting those images in another host name. But, WordPress doesn’t support hosting from another domain.

Here, sub domain plays a key roll. Host the images of your site in sub domain.

2. TweetMeme Retweet button: Bloggers love to promote their blog in various social networks and micro blogging services for  more traffic. One of the famous micro blogging services is Twitter. TweetMeme Retweet Button is the most popular plug-in used in WordPress blog. But, the page load time increases considerably after installing the plug-in. The plug-in loads a script at the beginning of the page. You can install TweetMeme Retweet button manually such that it loads the script after the main content and other parts of the site.

3. Image size: When you upload an image, it takes the default height and width property. But unfortunately, some WordPress theme lacks it. Always specify the dimensions for better performance. Try to reduce the number of images in your theme. Combine them into one and use that in your theme CSS.

4. Plugins: Don’t use too many plugins. Plugins are developed considering the general requirements. They run some extra scripts contributing in the page load time.

5. Theme design: Design your theme in such a way that the content section loads first. It will make available your site quickly.

6. Use caching plug-in: Use any one of these caching plugins – WP Super cache or W3 Total cache. Installation of the first one is simple but the second one requires some expertise. Read here how to install and configure W3 Total cache plug-in.

Overall, keep tracking your WordPress blog and tune the performance for better search ranking.