Many bloggers often neglect the thorny problem of the loading speed of their blog, and yet this is a factor that plays an important role in the SEO of the blog.
So today, I'm going to share 7 practical tips that will help you increase the loading speed of your blog. But before, I would like you to take a minute to test the loading speed of your blog.
There are many tools on this subject, but the one I prefer is called: www.whichloadsfaster.com . Once on the homepage of the site, click on "Try my own macthup". Then add the URL of your blog and that of another friend blog.
Now that you know the loading time, it's time to see how you can improve this loading speed.
1. Choose an effective theme
Many bloggers still make the mistake of choosing a free theme for their WordPress blog. Believe me, this is not really the best choice if you want to optimize your blog to the max.
Opt for a premium theme of proposed by genesis, Thesis or even WooThemes. Premium themes are better coded than free ones. The problem is that they are in English, so most French bloggers prefer to opt for free themes. If this is your case, then I recommend you contact the site www.blogpascher.com for a French translation of your theme. (Please contact their online support for more information).
2. Review your accommodation
Like many beginner bloggers, you may not know it but theWeb hosting plays an important role in the loading speed of your blog. Instead of shared hosting, perhaps you should opt for a dedicated hosting. Shared hosting can slow down the load time when the requirements on the shared server are high.
3. Remove any bulky Widgets and Plugins
This is one of the easiest things to do if you want to reduce the loading time of your site. The more plugins you have, the longer your blog loads. So remove all plugins and widgets that you no longer use, or are not strictly necessary.
For example, just a few weeks ago I was using 3 plugins sharing on social networks. Yesterday, I deleted it all and replaced it with a single plugin that does the same job. Delete all unnecessary plugins and see the difference.
4. Use the WordPress Plugin W3 Total Cache
Now that you have reduced the number of plugins you use, it's time to add a new list: W3 Total Cache. W3 Total Cache is a complete plugin but which nevertheless remains "relatively" simple to handle. We install, we activate, and then we configure. W3 Total Cache Improve the user experience of your site by improving the performance of your server, caching all aspects of your site and reducing the download time of your blog.
5. Use a content distribution network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of optimized servers around the world that host a copy of your blog's data. By making your site accessible from different servers, the CDN maximizes your bandwidth and at the same time reduces the load time of your site. Using a CDN is highly recommended when you have visitors all over the world. The server closest to a user will manage to provide content before all others. MaxCDN offers this type of service at relatively low rates.
6. Optimize images on your blog
Most bloggers don't think about optimizing their blog images, yet this is a very effective way to increase your blog's load speed. Many plugins can help you optimize your images ... personally, I recommend the plugin WP Smush.it
This is a WordPress Plugin which offers an API that automatically optimizes all your images.
7. Use images instead of share buttons
Very often because of their sizes, some social media share buttons take too long to load, which slows down the loading of your page. As long as it is to display 2 to 3 buttons, there is no problem. But when you go beyond that, things get complicated.
If you want to display more 3 share buttons at the bottom of your articles, I recommend using a plugin that will allow you to display your images without slowing down the opening of your blog.
OKAY. These are the 7 practical tips I wanted to share with you. If you have others, I am interested. 🙂.
So, what do you think of this article?
I would have liked to share the article but where are the share buttons? 🙂
Good evening Lisa,
They are right there on your Left. Do you see them?
No… I imagine this is from IE8…
Perhaps.
Hello Thierry,
Thanks for all these resources. I compared the speed of my blog with yours, it changes every time. Finally, it's a good tool to have on hand! 🙂
Very interesting the WP Smush.it plugin. Now we should see if it supports the old images already published ?? Maybe I'll test it ...
Sincerely,
Chafik
Hello Chafik,
It takes all the images into account. Old and new.
Hello Thierry
There is no photo your blog is 39% faster than mine.
I will look at the
Thank you for this article and the others
Jean Louis
Hello Jean-Louis,
It is always a pleasure to read you on this blog. Yes, it got faster mostly because I asked my BlogPasCher.com team to do the right thing, which is what I detailed in this article. 🙂
Hopefully on your next test you'll be 50% faster than me. 🙂
Sincerely,
Thierry
Hello
Thank you for this useful article.
I was completely unaware of the existence of this: " http://www.whichloadsfaster.com »
Thank you Thierry for your response and link.
Have a nice day
Sincerely,
Sié Issa
Hello Thierry,
Thank you for these tips and resources. I discovered a lot of things there that I didn't know.
For example, http://www.whichloadsfaster.com To test the speed of his blog. As soon as my blog leaves the maintenance mode, I test it with this tool.
Regarding the cache plugin, I use Super Cache and I did not know W3 Total Cache. Have you already tested Super Cache? If so, what are the pros and cons of the two? And I don't really know how these plugins work, how do you use them? Does it require too much technique? Maybe a tutorial.
Sincerely,
Sié Issa
Hello Sié,
1. No, I haven't tested Super Cache yet, I will definitely do so within a week. To answer the next question, I am unable to tell you about the pros and cons of these two plugins because I haven't tested them all.
2. I think I'll post a series of screenshots that will show my W3 Total Cache configuration: Otherwise, you can always go to this page: http://gtmetrix.com/wordpress-optimization-guide.html.
Sincerely,
Thierry