The maximum response time before users loses interest while waiting for a blog to load is around 10-12 seconds. Its time to put on your thinking cap. Below I mentioned some tricks and tips for improving your blog’s loading speed. Follow them if you want to retain your readers and drive traffic to your blog !
Note : Some of the below mentioned tips may not be applicable to Blogger blogs.
1. Upgrade The Version :To make use of all the tips and tricks it is better to upgrade to the latest WordPress release. Latest versions have many improvements and features when comparing with previous versions. Also upgrade your plugins to stay up-to-date
2. Become a plugin minimalist :You can easily replace most of the plugins with direct codes. Most of the blogs use plugins for creating archives like mine. It can be easily done with little codings.
3. Avoid JavaScript : Many of the themes have unnecessary JS codes, especially for displaying date and time. Remove them or replace them with some other relevant stuff. If you still want to use means, put the JavaScript into a single file and then load it at the bottom of the page.
4. Clean And Better Coding :Keep the codes clean and tidy. Remove unwanted codes like comments, new spaces and so on. Also remove unnecessary PHP tags. Check the list of 13 of the most common un-needed tags here. Also validate your HTML and CSS and correct the errors if you have any.
5. Simplicity is Essential : Keep everything simple and elegant, let it be your archives page or categories page. Simple design helps the blog to load faster, Google, for instance.
6. Optimize Images : Don’t overload your blog with images, unless you run a photo blog. It is ideal to keep 1-3 relevant images per article. Try to crop or resize the images. Let it be for your thumbnail or article images. Avoid animated GIF images, if you want to use it means, pick a small image. To optimize images try Shrink O’Matic.
7. Avoid Flash Content : Unless you are running a huge and popular site like Digital Inspiration, it is better to avoid flash content and any other plugins related to flash. They take more time to load.
8. Advertisements : Kills better than others. Don’t overload your blog with ads; let it be image ads or text ads. Don’t use too much of In-Text ads. Many PPC and CPM ads are full of HTML errors and they kill the blog’s loading speed mercilessly.
9. Themes and templates : Choose a simple and good theme for better loading. It is recommended to choose a theme with right sidebar, it helps to load the content first. Many prefer Thesis theme for WP blogs because of its simple design and coding.
10. Hosting Images : It is better to upload images in your own server other than third-party sites. Local files almost always load faster than external files. Always host images locally. It saves lot of time. You can also host the images in a subdomain.
11. Use Excerpts :Using excerpts reduces immense amount of time. Limit the number of posts to be displayed on homepage. Let it be for magazine style themes or normal themes.
12. Avoid Gadgets and Widgets : To be candid, they don’t add much to your blog. So it is better to avoid gadgets like shout box, polls, and so on. Also if that gadget’s site is down, then it could keep your site from loading properly as well.
13. Add Slash : If you include a slash (/) at the end of the link, the server will conclude that it is a directory page, thus reduces the loading time of the site. Eg : “hellboundbloggers.com/contact/” is better than “hellboundbloggers.com/contact”.
14. Optimise Your Database : You can increase your load time easily by optimising your database. There are two ways to do it, you can do it manually or you can use a plugin.
15. Reduce the HTTP Requests : Combine all the external files or scripts in a single location. Get rid of unnecessary images and headers. This helps to reduce the delay from HTTP requests.
16. Disable Hotlinking : Hotlinking refers to direct linking to a website’s files from someone else’s website. Victims of hotlinking are running out of traffic quota. Optimize your images and save the bandwidth. You can easily disable hotlinking via .htaccess file. Check the tutorial for disabling Hotlinking and other .htaccess tricks.
17. Turn Off Post Revisions : Post Revision is useless for single-author blogs. Whenever a post is edited, a new row will be created in wp_posts table and if you edit your posts or pages 10 times, then you will have 10 new rows in wp_posts table. Check this tutorial to turn off Post Revision.
18. WP Super Cache Plugin : It caches your blog for fast and quick loading. This plugin generates static html files. If your site is struggling to cope with the daily no. of visitors, or if your site appears on Digg.com,
19. Use image heights and widths : Adding height and width tags to images helps a lot to improve the loading speed. If the browser knows the width and height size of the image, then it can let it load in the background. If those tags are not used, the browser has to wait until the image loads.
20. Analyse The Speed : First download and install Firefox, if you don’t have one. Then install Firebug, YSlow and Google Page Speed. You can use these tools to analyse your blog’s load speed, for editing the CSS code and for best practice web page performance.
21. Choose Better Host : Last but not least, nothing can substitute a better host. Find a secure and reliable host for your blog. Avoid Free WP hosts and try paid ones, if you can afford. Currently I’m using Go Daddy Inc. and I’m happy with it.