Maximizing Performance and Speeding Up WordPress

2. So let’s speed it up

3. I’m Syed Balkhi <ul><li>Founder of WPBeginner, Uzzz Productions, Awesome Motive Inc., and more to come . </li></ul>

4. Why Performance Matters <ul><li>Decreases Bounce Rate </li></ul><ul><li>Increase Time Spent on the Page </li></ul><ul><li>Often increases pageviews </li></ul><ul><li>SEO Benefits </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Increases Indexing Rate </li></ul></ul>

5. Our #1 Problem <ul><li>Hosting Providers </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Memory Usage Limits on Shared Hosts </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Potential of Account Termination if you exceed limits. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Most importantly site crashes during peak times (such as hitting front page of Digg or other social media networks) thus hurting your brand’s reputation. </li></ul></ul>

6. Solution(s)?? <ul><li>Getting a better and more reliable webhost </li></ul><ul><li>Install Caching Methods </li></ul><ul><li>Content Delivery Networks (CDN) </li></ul><ul><li>Minify </li></ul><ul><li>Database Maintenance </li></ul><ul><li>Limiting HTTP Queries </li></ul><ul><li>Proper 3rd Party Integrations </li></ul>

12. I recommend MaxCDN They were kind enough to give a 25% coupon code: wpbeginner

14. Best Caching Plugin is: W3 Total Cache

15. Decrease Page Size <ul><li>Use Excerpts instead of Full Posts. </li></ul><ul><li>Show a maximum of 10 posts per page. </li></ul><ul><li>User smaller images (optimize them) - use Smush.it </li></ul>

16. Database Maintenance

19. Limiting HTTP requests

20. Plugins are Great, But... <ul><li>They can increase your site’s load time when they add custom stylesheet(s) and JavaScript(s). </li></ul><ul><li>One or two plugin does not mater, but when you have 8 plugins, each adding a CSS and JS file, you got yourself 16 HTTP requests which can/should be limited. </li></ul>

22. Oops, the theme is broken

23. Yes, I know so lets FIX it.

24. Merging CSS Files <ul><li>Copy the plugin’s CSS file, and paste it in your theme’s style.css file. </li></ul><ul><li>So in this case, we will copy “cleaner-gallery.css” file and paste it into our theme’s style.css file. </li></ul><ul><li>Repeat this STEP for all plugins that are adding additional CSS files. </li></ul>

25. In a Perfect World

28. Proper 3rd Party Integrations

29. Facebook the right way

30. Enable XFBML Support http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-open-graph-meta-in-wordpress/

31. Asynchronous Loading < body > < div id = "fb-embed" ></ div > < script > window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({appId: 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX', status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true}); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; document.getElementById('fb-embed').appendChild(e); }()); </ script >

32. Analytics the right way

33. Asynchronous Loading < body > < script > var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push( ['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X'], ['_setDomainName', 'domain.com'], ['_trackPageview'] ); (function() {var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? ' https://ssl ' : ' http://www ' ) + '.goog le-analytics.com/ga.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga);})(); </ script >

34. Don’t forget the BASICS

35. Add scripts in the footer

36. Update Core & Plugins REGULARLY

37. Tools to check Performance <ul><li>Yahoo YSlow </li></ul><ul><li>Google Page Speed </li></ul><ul><li>Pingdom Tools </li></ul>

38. Additional Resources <ul><li>http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-wordpress-plugins-affect-your-sites-load-time/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-install-and-setup-w3-total-cache-for-beginners/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.tutorial9.net/web-tutorials/wordpress-caching-whats-the-best-caching-plugin/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/18-useful-tricks-to-speed-up-wordpress-boost-performance/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://line25.com/articles/wordpress-fat-loss-diet-to-speed-up-ease-load </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-web-optimization-tips-best-practices/ </li></ul><ul><li>http://www.w3-edge.com/weblog/2011/02/optimize-social-media-button-performance/ </li></ul>

39. I’m Syed Balkhi <ul><li>Founder of WPBeginner, Uzzz Productions, Awesome Motive Inc., and more to come. </li></ul><ul><li>Twitter: @wpbeginner / @syedbalkhi </li></ul><ul><li>Facebook: http://facebook.com/wpbeginner </li></ul><ul><li>Email: [email_address] </li></ul>