Speeding up your WordPress Website

One of the big questions we get from clients is “what can I do to speed up my website?” I wish there was a magic button that solved this issue, but there’s not. That being said, there are numerous things that can be done to increase your WordPress website speed. Page load speed is very important with more and more people viewing your website on their smartphones and tablets on a mobile wireless network.  We came across this article in Smashing magazine which covers this topic. With clients’ websites we apply many of these speed enhancing techniques. Here is a list of our top five suggestions for increasing your WordPress website.

 Top five suggestions for increasing your WordPress website:

  1. Choose a good hosting service –  (good article from Venture Harbour by Marcus Taylor)
  2. Compress your images – try WP smush.it – Free plugin
  3. Leverage browser caching – try W3 total caching – Free plugin
  4. Minify CSS and Javascript – try  W3 total caching or Better WordPress Minify – Free plugin
  5. Look for sluggish plugins – try P3 – Free plugin

Test your website speed:

  1. PageSpeed Insights – by Google Developers
  2. WebPageTest 
  3. Pingdom Website Speed Test

Update: We came across this article – How to Speed Up WP Engine for Running WordPress Sites Super Fast. This article may seem a little focused on increasing your WP Engine performance, but many of his suggestions would apply to any hosting service. The article is worth a quick read.

We are also happy to talk with you about your WordPress Website – maybe this is something we can help you with.

Published by

Felipe Lujan-Bear

I am both a left and right brain person. I have spent over 15 years as an online developer and designer. After attending the Academy of Art - San Francisco, I worked in online learning for a number of years at Pearson, plc as project manager for UK-based university websites. I have worked on projects for Hyperion - Oracle, Mercury Interactive - HP, Thinstall - VMware, eTrade, Wind River, and many others. My projects have included developing large websites, custom CMS, trade show presentation and collateral material, partner marketing, inbound marketing, video production, flash development, and WordPress site design and development. On the creative side, my skills run to a full range of design, animation, video, and photography. On the technical side my skills include a wide range of internet technology such as PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, Jquery, HTML, CSS, XML, and more. Because I have worked in the corporate world for many years, I understand the complex challenges involved in professional design and development.

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