speeding up wordpress on shared hosting

Speeding up WordPress on Shared Hosting

Kevin Cristiano kcristiano@tadpole.cc

Do you feel like your site loads like a ….

Why is Speed Important

• Why do you care about the speed of your sites? • Because your readers care

• The Google Factor

• So what can we do about it? What are our options on Shared Hosting

How to Speed up WordPress • Stay up to Date- Update WordPress

Core! • Core is faster today than previous versions

Hosting Matters

• It’s not just about price – “Unlimited” doesn’t exist

• Read the Terms of Service (TOS) • Call them – ask questions

– If they won’t answer a question to get a new customer, how will respond if you call for support

WordPress.org Hosting Page Links to Hosting Sites listed below

Themes

• Where do I get a good theme?

– WordPress Theme Repository

• How do I know it’s a ‘Fast’ Theme

– Use a plugin called “Display Queries” to see what the theme is doing to the database

– Test Site

Plugins

• Plugins: Avoid Plugin Overload

Settings • Home Page – How many Posts are you

loading?

Media • Images What format should I use

• Use the smallest size possible that preserves quality – In general jpg for photos

• Resize to the published size

• Don’t resize on the fly

• Set your Media Settings to match your theme

• Gravatars: Check your Discussion Settings

• Video – Use a service built to handle streaming video like YouTube or

Vimeo

Sharing and Widgets

• Social Media Buttons and Counters – How many times will they load each page

• Call home each time they load

• Balance your content needs with speed considerations

• Widget Areas

– Be judicious about what you load

– Load dynamically – Use Widget Logic or Display Widgets

Database Tweaks

• Post Revisions – Manage The amount of Post revisions stored in your database

• Revision Control Plugin

Database Tweaks

• Optimize your database – Ensure best performance by keeping your database clean – WP Optimize is a plugin that will assist you in doing this

To Cache or not to Cache

• Once you have addressed Hosting, Theme and Plugin issues. Look at Caching

Both Plugins are reliable with a solid history.

• Which Plugin to use? • W3 Total Cache • WP Super Cache

Finding and fixing Speed Issues

• Testing Your Site with External Tools • Ismyblogworking.com • Pingdom Tools • Yslow (extensions for Firefox and

Chrome) • Page Speed from Goohle

Questions?

Contact Info Kevin Cristiano kcristiano@tadpole.cc @kcristiano http://www.tadpole.cc

Links

Hosts

• http://www.liquidweb.com/web-hosting/

• http://www.siteground.com/wordpress-hosting.htm

• http://www.westhost.com/web-hosting/

• http://laughingsquid.us/

• http://mediatemple.net/wordpress-webhosting.php

• http://www.bluehost.com/wordpress_hosting

• http://www.dreamhost.com/

• http://page.ly/

• http://wpengine.com/b/