5 WordPress Tips To A Faster Blog

Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 14 of February , 2008 at 6:11 am

WordPress tips abound however they are generally encouraging another plugin or more code within the header, footer, index or page files. These WordPress tips are a little different. They are designed to speed up you blog, not slow it down.

The problem is fairly simple. The more widgets, plugins or PHP code that WordPress has to load, the slower your blog will get. If you have a blog that also relies on graphics, you have probably got a snail for a blog. Loading speed is one of the greatest turn-offs when it comes to visitors bouncing away from your blog.

The following WordPress tips will help to optimize your blog with hopefully some noticeable increases in load times.

1. First and foremost. How does your blog load? By this I refer to the load order which is generally header, left sidebar, right sidebar, content and footer. If your sidebars are busy then the last thing your visitor will see is the content and that could be after 10 or even 15 seconds. Look out - they are gone before the content loads. WordPress Tip One: select a theme that loads content early, preferably first.
2. PHP is actually a slow language to run. The PHP code is run and converted into HTML which the browser then renders to the screen. You can see the results by viewing the pages source code (View, Page Source or Control U or right click View Page Source - FireFox). Generally speaking, the Pages header and footer are fairly static. Once you have your page setup it is normally only the sidebars and of course the content that changes. Have a look at the source code - it is in HTML. WordPress Tip Two: Cut out the middleman (PHP). Copy the header and footer HTML code from the source code screen. In the Presentation - Edit Theme section, paste this code in to replace the PHP code for the relevant sections - take care and back up the files first.
3. Sidebars are notoriously slow at loading. Humans are notorious for adding every new gadget that comes along. WordPress Tip Three: The easiest tip to work on. Go through every widget in your sidebars and really consider whether or not you need them, particularly if they are repeating the same information, eg, recent posts, most visited posts etc. If it is not really adding to the benefit of your reader - get rid of it.
4. Plugins are another area that can slow your blog considerably. WordPress loads all plugins whether or not they have been activated. WordPress Tip Four: If the plugin has not been activated, delete it altogether. While you are at it, check that each plugin is up-to-date and is really necessary. If you don’t need it - delete it.
5. A lot of blogs like to advertise who has been visiting with widgets from BlogCatolog or MyblogLog to name two. WordPress Tip Five: if you have a widget from one of the social directories, check to see if you can create a full width widget (you can with BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog). If you can, place it in the footer so that it appears across the bottom of your blog. The footer is the last to load - after the content.

Each of these WordPress tips may only improve your blogs load speed by a half to one second. Put them all together and you have as much as five seconds reduced from your blogs load speed. On the internet, that is quite a reduction. Keep a lookout in the coming weeks for more WordPress tips on how to increase your blogs load speed.

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Category: WordPress tips

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