Tweak WordPress to have a faster loading website

The speed at which the website loads add to the usability of the website. Since search engines have started giving importance to the the website speed for Search Engine Page Ranking (SERP) it has become vital that you have a website which loads fast.

If you have a WordPress website then you can take simple steps to make your website faster.

1. Eliminate useless stuff and code from WordPress

   It might happen that there might be some components on your website which are there on your website but you do not use them. Removing this code makes your website faster for example ‘are the Flickr images worth it on the home page’?
   

2. Use the bare minimum plugins

   Sometimes users go overboard as far as using WordPress plugins are concerned. You should try and use the minimum number of plugins on your WordPress site and analyze whether each plugin adds value to the website or not.
   

3. Enabling cache

   Enabling cache helps in loading a WordPress website faster and speeds up load times. W3 Total Cache plugin is a popular plugin that can be used to enable cache. The plugin supports CDN (Content Delivery Network) as well.
   

4. Compress JavaScript and CSS files

   Compressing or minifying JavaScript and CSS files can improve the load time of your website. The option to minify JS and CSS files is available in the W3 Total Cache plugin as well.
   However, I would recommend using stand alone services to minify JS and CSS files. To minify JS use the service at http://jscompress.com/ and to minify CSS files use the service at http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/main/csscompressor/. Both the services are free and do a better job than other services. Please backup your JS and CSS files before compressing them.
   
5. Combine JavaScript and CSS files
   With the increasing number of plugins and themes when WordPress loads a page it has to load multiple JavaScript and CSS files (each through a different HTTP call) as well to load all the components of the page which takes its toll on the speed of the website.
   To overcome this problem you can combine JavaScript and CSS files thereby reducing the number of HTTP requests and making your website faster. To use single CSS and JavaScript code you will have to disable the calls to the CSS and JavaScript files in the various PHP files and add the CSS and JS code to the main CS and JS files of your blog.
   If tweaking code is not something you would like to do then there is plugin that can help you do that. JS & CSS Script Optimizer plugin for WordPress allows you combine CS and JS code into one file.
   

6. Image Optimization

   Images can be optimized where the file size of the image us reduced while keeping the image quality the same. One of the best tools out there for image optimization (also called image smushing) is Smush it by Yahoo.If you use Firefox then use the Yslow extension to incorporate smush it into your browser and see for yourself how much space can be saved by optimizing the images.
   

7. Add a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

   Moving your WordPress installation to CDN can improve the performance of the website dramatically. A Content Delivery Network, also referred to as Content Distribution Network, is a network of computers around the world that have the same content and when accessing the site the users access the site from the computer that is geographically nearer to them (this happens automatically and the user experience is not affected) which makes the website load faster and with minimum bandwidth usage.
   

8. Optimize database using php MyAdmin

   Since PHP and MYSQL are required for WordPress you hosting control panel should give you access to phpMyAdmin.
   Click on the phpMyAdmin link and go to the phpMyAdmin dashboard. Select the checkbox next to WordPress tables and chose ‘optimize table’ command
   
9. Speed up access to your favorite frameworks via the AJAX Libraries API
   You can speed up a WordPress installation by using CDN (like Google) for popular libraries like
   • Jquery
   • Mootools
   • Prototype
   • script.aculo.us
   • dojo

To use the frameworks from Google CDN use the Google API method which can be implemented using the following code

“<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script> 
<script type="text/javascript">google.load("prototype", "1.6.0.2");</script> “

If you implement the seven suggestions for speeding up your WordPress website I’m sure you will see a big change in the speed of the WordPress installation you have. Please share any tricks and tips for optimizing the load times for a WordPress website if you know of any which have not been covered in the post.

There are some plugins which you can use to improve speed of your WordPress installations I will discuss the plugins in a post in the near future.

If you have a WordPress based website and do not want to get your hands dirty then feel free to contact me pali.madra attherate gmail for a no obligation consultation.