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People have very short attention spans in this digital age. If they don't find what they want in a few seconds they will click away. There are just so many things fighting for our attention that it doesn't take much for us to say "never mind"and go looking for something else.
Your site should load in less than 5 seconds and definitely no more than 8. Your site speed also affects your Google search rankings
Testing Your Site Speed
You can test your site speed using a few different tools. They are all slightly different. I suggest trying each one out and using the results of them all combined to determine if your site speed needs improvement.
- My Site Speed - simple results but doesn't help you figure out what to fix.
- Website Speed Test - can test up to 10 sites at one time, basic results
- Web Page Analyzer - more in-depth and gives feedback on specific images/areas
- Pingdom - in-depth but complicated
- Stop Watch - stopwatch at the top of the page
I Have My Results, Now What?
If the tests say that your website is running at optimal speed (8 seconds or less at least, 5 seconds or less is best) then you will still want to read on to find out how to increase site speed so you can ensure your site stays at an optimal speed.
If the tests say your site is too slow, then read on to see all the ways your site can get slowed down. Pick the one you think might be causing the most problems for you and start with that. After you make a chance or two, retest to see if there was an improvement.
How to Increase Site Speed
© Ssuaphoto | Dreamstime.com
On Any Blogging Platform
- Crop your images to the size you want BEFORE uploading them. Don't upload it huge and then resize it.
- Compress your images before using as well. Picmonkey.com or ipiccy.com are free.
- Stay away from animated graphics, unnecessary JavaScript, background sound and nested tables.
- Using CSS instead of HTML will make your site load faster.
On Blogger
There is not much you can do other than the above to increase blogger blog's speed. But there are a few.
- Display less posts on the main page. Definitely less than 10, perhaps even 6 or 7.
- If you add custom CSS, it should go at the top of your page.
- Third party JavaScript should go at the end of your page
On WordPress
There are a few things you can do with a WP blog to speed up the load time.
The more "stuff" on your blog, the longer it takes to load. Themes, plugins, comments, post revisions etc. Clean your database regularly to increase site speed. Every time you make a change to a post and it auto saves, it creates a separate post revision. All these add up and take up room.
- Delete deactivated themes/plugins. They take up room and are also a security risk.
- Evaluate the rest of your plugins to see if you need them all. One plugin that does two jobs is better than two separate plugins.
- Use the P3 plugin to evaluate your plugins' functionality. More Here: Plugin Performance Profiler
- Don't schedule backups to your server. Or if you do, remove all but the most current.
- Use a Cache plugin which shows saved version of your webpage to visitors instead of fully loading the page every time. Use WP Super Cache OR W3 Total Cache
- To get rid of those post revisions, auto draft posts, and spam comments, use WP Clean Up or WP Optimize
These ideas should get you started so you can get your site loading quickly.
Summer Davis says
These are GREAT tips and I've bookmarked this post into my blog folder. I checked my site and it was under 5sec so I did a little happy dance. 🙂
Kathleen Garber says
Glad to hear it!
youngmarriedmama says
Thanks for sharing! I've been wondering about this.
Liz @ ANIAN says
I need to make sure I'm using compressed images. I'm not sure, so thanks for the reminder!
Elizabeth Towns says
Thanks - I will be running one of these as soon as I get done working my schedule tonight. I really need this, and will get up to speed.
Elizabeth T, Early Riser
lifeaccordingtoamanda says
Mine all came back as good! Thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to make sure my times are speedy 🙂
Rob says
Very good info! My pages load nicely!
Dov Shapira says
How cool, my website is WordPress and I love it.
Thank you all this information 🙂
Veronica says
Great tips. Looks like I have some work to do 🙂
Yvonne Brown says
I never thought about this stuff! Thanks for looking out!!
Yvonne Brown
Kelly says
Great information here...
@SonoranOasis says
Mine was a little over six seconds. I think I have an old theme on my WordPress blog. I'll have to remove it.
stephy says
ran my sites and they seem to be good 🙂 thanks
jagoterry says
Mine is fast enough but can see if it gets bigger some things could bog it down.
thanks for the information !!
roadrunnerfloristbasketexpress says
Very interesting information. My blog is not my website, but I ran the scan on the site. Does it take too long to load? Probably. It has 100 photos!
Kathleen Garber says
100 is over the recommended photos. Depending on how you are using them you might be able to make a collage to show many different images in ONE compressed photo.
jenniferclay says
I use the WP Cleanup plugin and it works great!
John says
Definitely some great tips (some of which I did and did not know). I'll have to bookmark and refer to this later. Thanks!
Gangesh says
Great Post! I liked it very much.
Jocker says
thank you, this help me 🙂
Jona@BohoWillow says
Thanks! Moved some java from the sidebar to the bottom and lost .45 seconds on loading!
Lawrence says
You have really made my blog speed better with this your sweet presentation
Thanks
Nicole says
My blog loads in less than 5 seconds but under earnings it still gives me a warning of slow load speed. I was told they want it to load in under 3 seconds. This is tough because it is image heavy...it's kind of a how to guide.
Sharon Hepburn says
Question for you. I want put in a cache pluggin (word Press) but my computer dude says every time he has done this and subscribed to MaxCdn his files get corupted. Have you had a problem like this? do you use a cache and maxcdn?
thanks for your insight.
Kathleen Garber says
I'm sorry what is MaxCdn? I guess I don't use it since I don't know what it is.
Jari Ullah says
So I will try to implement these settings in my blog now 🙂 Thanks
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