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7 WordPress Optimization Tips

Posted by admin on January 27th, 2010
Tags: Basics, Wordpress Guide, ,
7 WordPress Optimization Tips
 

There may be times when your WordPress blog starts running slow. This can be frustrating and time consuming if you are trying to figure out how to get the performance of your blog running better. Here are 7 tips for optimizing your blog and making the visitor’s experience pleasant and efficient by speeding up the site so they (and you) can move through the blog without speed being an issue. Another point to take into consideration is if you are going to be substantially increasing the traffic to your blog. In this case you will want to ensure the blog is running at peak performance so the increased traffic is handled well without causing the site to run slowly.

  1. Try keeping page sizes fewer than 100 Kbytes and under 50 Kbytes is really ideal. Many times people add too much stuff to their sites not realizing that the page size is increasing exponentially. Webpages will typically have images that may not have been optimized for the web, flash files, JavaScript and videos. Hosting your videos on YouTube and linking to them is better than hosting the videos on your site.
  2. Check on the performance of any plugins you are using on your WordPress blog. Some plugins are very resource intensive and will definitely slow down your site. To check the plugins you will need to deactivate them and then spot check your site. If your site is running faster without the plugins, don’t worry, you do not need to get rid of all your plugins. Simply activate each plugin one at a time, then go back and spot check the site again. Paying particular attention to the areas that were previously running slowly. If, after activating one of the plugins, the site begins to run slow again, you have found the culprit. There are two choices you have if one of the plugins is the problem. Try contacting the author and asking them to take a look at the plugin for possible problems, or you can find a different plugin that will do the same task for you.
  3. Themes are great and can add a very nice look and feel to your blog, however, the theme may be the reason your site is running slow, especially if the theme includes a lot of javascripting, or large image files. To test the theme, default back to the original WordPress theme and then check your site. If it is now running quickly, you need to consider an alternate theme. Or you can try to debug the theme using Firebug which is a Firefox debugging tool.
  4. Post version tracking is a tool that writes post revisions to the database whenever you save a post. Sometimes, with heavy blogging, this feature can create a bottle neck. If you don’t think you need to save post revisions, you can turn this feature off. Blogs that have been saving post revisions for quite some time may need to have the revisions deleted. Of course you should make a backup copy of your blog before you attempt to delete the post revisions. Deleting post revisions will make the overall size of your blog smaller which may enhance its performance.
  5. WordPress will ping any servers you have listed in your ping list. The reason for pinging is to let servers know of changes and posts to the blog. This helps bring in traffic which is why people have a ping list. Sometimes pings will time out during the process of pinging. When this happens, slow downs can occur. WordPress will also notify sites of any links that you have made in your posts by doing what is called a pingback, however, this can also time out. To find out if this is what is slowing your site down, clear the ping list and also disable the pingback option. Check your site to see if it is faster.
  6. If you have data that is constantly needed to be retrieved, try using a caching plugin to retrieve data.
  7. Reducing the image file size is such an easy thing to do and will greatly improve the function of your WordPress blog if it is running slow. Photos taken with a typical digital camera are way too large in file size to be loaded onto a WordPress blog without reducing them in some way. There are a few different programs that will do this. I use Photoshop and it works great. You can also use Gimp, which is a free photo editing software. The ideal size for a WordPress photo is 96 dpi for resolution and about 280×280 pixels. Of course the size of the photo will change depending on the orientation (horizontal or vertical).

Having a blog is a lot of fun and for some people it is a way of making a living. Ensuring that your blog is running well and is providing a good experience for your visitors can sometimes not only be important, but vital as well if you are running an income producing blog. The tips in this article should get your blog running well again in no time.

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