3 really simple ways to speed up your blog

July 4th, 2007 § 45

There are several methods to speed up a WordPress blog like optimising images or reducing the HTTP Requests, etc but here I’ll describe to you the most important ones which you should first take into consideration before applying any other techniques. By following these 3 simple steps, you’ll will gain a considerable boost in speed right away.

  1. Use excerpts on frontpage

    2. Many people still doubt or prefer not using excerpts but indeed post excerpt has various benefits, one of which is to help you gain some speed. Instead of displaying several full posts loaded with images, clips, etc, use the excerpt feature on the frontpage making your blog load faster when someone is accessing it. Read the full details on using post excerpt at Things you should know when using post excerpt.

    using post excerpt

  2. WordPress’ built-in compression feature

    3. A really nifty feature of WordPress which many of us don’t use is its really simple compression feature that can be activated at a click’s reach by logging to your WordPress admin section > navigate to Options > Reading > WordPress should compress articles (gzip) if browsers ask for them. This will provide your visitors with a much lighter version of your blog by compressing some PHP down within it.

    gzip compression

    Do make sure though to deactivate the WP-Cache plugins if you’re using it since having both, the gzip compression and WP-Cache plugins on might mess things around.

  3. Reduce your stylesheet’s size

    4. Making your stylesheet(the style.css file found in your current theme’s folder) the smallest size possible will allow you to gain considerable loading speed since it’s loaded everytime.

    The simplest way is remove the comments and coding things on the same line instead of several lines(left to right fashion instead of top to down one). 

    
body {font: 62.5% Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; color: #444;background: #EDEDED;text-align: center;	margin: 0 0 30px;}

    instead of 

    
body {
	font: 62.5% Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;
	color: #444;
	background: #EDEDED;
	text-align: center;
	margin: 0 0 30px;
	}

    Else I would suggest you using the CSS Tweak which will do this automatically for you. Make sure though that you use CSS Tweak only if you won’t be touching your stylesheet in the near future since for those that are not used to reading code that way(all on the same line), this might well confuse them.

    css tweak

    Just save your style.css and upload it to CSS Tweak. Select the various things you want removed from the stylesheet and click tweak. You’ll then be offered the optimised stylesheet(with a percentage of how much smaller it is) which you can then upload to your current theme’s folder overwriting the previous one. Always keep a copy of the unmodified stylesheet if there is a need to change things. Just name it to something else(e.g original_style) and keep it in your current theme’s folder itself.

After applying the various techniques, compare your speed before and after and see how much you’ve gained. Use Pingdom that will provide you a detailed analysis of your blog’s loading time with separate item’s loading time like how long your stylesheet, any scripts you might be using is taking to load,etc. Just enter your blog’s URL/address at the top and hit Test Now. The results will be displayed as follows : every items(post,images,etc) loading time and your blog’s overall loading results which you can see at the Website information.

pingdom site

website info at pingdom

Previously I also talked on gaining speed by displaying images properly on your blog, but make sure to check out DailyBlogTip’s 6 Ways to Speed Up Your Site which holds further tips you could apply after playing with the above ones.

Like I’ve said above, that should be the first steps to your blog speeding journey since this list isn’t a definitive one. Thanks for reading and do please leave your comment if you need help or subscribe to my blog if you enjoyed it.

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