WordPress Tips: Is Your Blog Slow To Load

There is nothing that turns potential visitors off faster than a slow blog. Many blogers have great designs and their page is full of every imaginable widget – the problem is, the blog takes minutes to load.

Your blog is no different to any other web page. It should load quickly and be ready to be navigated within seconds – certainly not minutes. There are many causes so if your blog is slow to load, check some of these key areas:

Plugins:
How many plugins are you using and do you really need all of them? More importantly, how many plugins do you have that have been de-activated. De-activating a plugin is not enough as WordPress still loads them. If you have de-activated a plugin, either delete it entirely, or move into a temporary directory away from the ‘plugins’ directory.

Widgets:
How many widgets do you have on your sidebars and do you really need them? It is nice to have pictures of all your visitors from places like BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog, do you need both? Other widgets like sitemeters can be very slow as well. Double check your widgets and make a decision as whether they really do enhance your blog.

Graphics:
Graphics can be very slow. Even more of a problem are video and audio files that auto run. Leave the auto run off if possible and let the user decide whether or not play them. Graphics should be optimized. If your server is slow as well, store your graphics off site.

Page Design:
What loads first, the sidebars or your content? Your content should be the first to load. Your visitors can be reading it while the sidebars load. If your sidebars load first and there is a delay, it can be minutes before the content appears.

Header Image:
How big is your header image and is it optimized or does it need resizing to load? Header images, whilst first to load, can be the slowest part of your page. Make sure it optimized for quick loading.

Code:
There are some areas of your pages code that never changes, yet it is written in PHP and makes calls to the database. For example, when loading the header the code will often get your blog name from the data base. Use the ‘view code’ option in your browser to see the HTML equivalent. You can rewrite some aspects in HTML to remove the slow PHP and database calls. This can change the load speed of your blog.

Slow blogs are a no-no these days. Optimize your blog to ensure it loads quickly and provides your visitor with a great experience.