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7 Ways To Make Your Blog Load Faster

7 ways to make your blog load faster

I’m sure you know, by now, that I’m no techie expert.

Yet, there’s no doubt that one of the most important SEO metrics is site speed.

That’s right.

If your blog is not loading fast enough, you could be losing plenty of traffic… free Google search traffic.

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So, I’d like to introduce my guest writer, Jason Chow, who is an expert at this.

He’ll show you exactly what you need to do to make your blog load faster, so you can enjoy top SEO results, and the free traffic that comes with it.

7 Ways To Make Your Blog Load Faster

by Jason Chow

It only takes a few seconds for people to decide whether they like your blog or not.

You could have all of the prerequisites down to having a good blog or website — gorgeous themes, awesome content, and great marketing.

None of it is going to matter if it takes FOREVER for your blog or website to load.

As a blogger, you can’t overlook the importance of having a fast loading blog.

Speed is so important that even Google considers a website’s loading speed as a ranking factor.

And we all want to be high up on Google’s ranking list, don’t we?

Statistics have shown that almost 50% of visitors expect a website to load within 2 seconds.

A delay of more than 3 seconds can make 40% of them to abandon your site completely.

Imagine how many potential readers that you’ll lose just because your blog isn’t fully optimized to load fast?

A blog that loads fast is very important for a blogger and if you want to make sure that it doesn’t slow down, then read up on the tips and tricks that you can use to make your blog load faster!

1. Get rid of unwanted plugins

If you’re a first-time blogger or website owner, chances are you’re using WordPress as your platform.

One of the advantages of using WordPress is that they offer a huge library of plugins that you can use to improve your blog in many ways.

However, there comes a time when having too much can also be a disadvantage.

Consider this…

You’ve just set up your blog.

You’re looking at the plugins and you start installing a whole bunch thinking that it’ll make your website even better.

Little did you know, those same plugins eat up a lot of your server resources when running in the background.

This causes your blog to suffer massive slowdown!

Now, we’re not saying you should abandon using plugins altogether.

Instead, keep these two tips in mind when it comes to installing them:

  • Disable or uninstall unwanted plugins — A good rule of thumb for plugins is to uninstall or disable whatever plugin you’re not using on a daily basis (or at all). But, that’s not the definite rule. The co-founder of WordPress website support service WP Curve,  Dan Norris, recommends 20 to be a good number. A number of potential issues such as site performance, speed and security, can arise if you do not maintain the plugins correctly
  • Use plugins that can do multiple tasks — More often than not, we tend to use different plugins for different functions (i.e. social sharing, mobile version converter, etc.) The problem comes when you install plugins that serve one function only. Imagine having ten different plugins for ten different purposes, that will definitely eat up your server resources. Opt for multifunctional plugins like the Yoast SEO which covers different functions such as analytics, sitemap and SEO plugins.

2. Find a better host

Want to quickly improve your blog load times?

Then consider signing up for the best web hosting company.

If you haven’t signed up for a host, then take your time to find a hosting provider that suits your needs and demands.

For blogs or websites that are small and are fairly minimalists in terms of design and functionality, you can go for cheap and trusted hosting providers such as Bluehost or Siteground.

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These are great if you’re not an image/feature heavy website or expecting loads of traffic, as they have limited server resources for their shared plans.

Just be careful of plans with unlimited hosting as they often have caveats to them.

Once your blog grows bigger and you’re getting more visitors, then it’s time to consider more expensive options such as dedicated server hosting or premium hosting providers.

With dedicated hosting, you won’t have to worry about other websites taking your server resources and causing your blog to slow down.

3. Choose themes wisely

Let’s say that you’re building a physical store for your brand.

Would you use cheap and poor materials to construct it?

Of course not!

The same goes for making a blog or website as well.

The themes you choose will not only reflect your brand but can also affect how well optimized your website will be.

If you’re serious about blogging, it would be best to avoid using free themes as they could be a risk to your blog.

With free themes, they are often poorly coded and could also have tons of malicious codes in them.

That enables other people to hack your blog and drain its resources.

Are premium themes better then?

Unfortunately no.

Some paid/premium themes are also poorly coded and are not useful.

The best practice is to get the trustworthy WordPress themes from the trusted marketplace.

4. Optimize all of your images

It’s often said that having images increases the visual appeal of a blog, so it’s not uncommon to for bloggers to have a huge library of stock photos uploaded on to their site.

But here’s the thing… the more images you upload, the longer it’ll take for your blog to load.

Should you not upload images then?

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Of course not!

Instead, optimizing your images is an easy opportunity to make your blog load faster.

You should do it before you upload them to your gallery.

You should always resize your images if they are very large before uploading them.

Plugins such as Smush It, which is a service from Yahoo, can be used to compress your images without you losing the quality of the image itself.

If you’re using PNG files, you can try TinyPNG, which is one of the best sites to compress images without sacrificing quality.

Another plugin that you can try is the Lazy Load plugin which will conditionally load images when the reader scrolls down to the blog, instead of loading all the images at once.

With this, you can still have a lot of time to load images without affecting the quality of the user experience.

5. Consider using CDN

Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of web servers that are distributed around the world to help deliver your content efficiently to your readers.

It’s a much more efficient content delivery system than a single server system.

Don’t know what that means?

It basically means that your content will take less time to load for a user as the data will be placed nearby their locations, making it easier for them to download images and so forth.

There are plenty of CDNs available, ranging from free to paid.

For bloggers, it’s recommended that you use MaxCDN, which is one of the best CDN’s in terms of cost and features.

If you’re looking for free CDNs, you can try CloudFlare, though it’s very limited in its options.

For bigger sites, Amazon CloudFront offers the best in terms of performance and functionality for a premium price, though it’s recommended for eCommerce or heavy traffic sites such as Moz.

6. Keep your ads to a minimum

It’s important for a blogger to be able to monetize their blog and one of the ways to do that is through ads.

While housing ads on your blog are a great way to get revenue, it can also be the reason why your website might be loading slowly.

Ad banners and GIF images can take up a lot of your server resources.

So it goes without saying that you need to be careful with the number of ads you put on your website.

The suggestion?

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Keep the number of ads to a minimum and compress their images as well.

Try different methods such as affiliate marketing, sponsored content or selling services on your blog to cover up on the ad profits you’re missing out on.

Google Adsense offers the ability to put your ads in an asynchronous format which will not hamper the loading of your blog.

Always opt for that instead of synchronous format ads.

7. Use a caching plugin

A great tool for boosting the speed of your blog is to use caching plugins.

These plugins are very effective in terms of increasing overall page load speed.

Whenever a visitor loads up your blog, they have to load up contents of your blog from your server.

Loading content and data such as HTML files, CSS files, images, etc., takes time and uses far too many resources for your hosting server.

With a caching plugin, you can store your blog as static files on the server.

This makes it easier for users to load your website faster as they can just grab the static files instead of requesting and reloading all of the data again.

There are a number of caching plugins that you can opt for but the best ones are WP Super Cache and WP Total Cache.

Both plugins are great as they are super easy to set-up and use.

Generally speaking, WP Super Cache is better for beginners while WP Total Cache is more suited for those who want advanced features.

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Conclusion

Google’s guideline states that page speed will play an important role in determining their blog or website ranking.

Make sure that you stay in Google’s good graces by making your blog load faster with the ways detailed above.

Just put in the effort to implement the methods such as caching systems or optimized images and you will see the positive impact on your user experience, search rankings, and more!

So now, it’s your turn…

Is your blog loading fast enough?

I’d like to hear from you in the comments below.

Please share this article on your social media sites, too.

I appreciate it.

About The Author

7 ways to make your blog load fasterJASON CHOW is a fan of technology, WordPress and entrepreneurship.

He likes to read about news related to internet marketing and startups.

He believes reading and practicing what we read are important.

Get in touch with Jason on social media via Twitter.

 

Donna Merrill
Donna is a well known blogger and creator of "Blogging Magic" - an intensive guide to blogging. "Blogging Magic" is for beginners who are trying to figure out how to bring their blogs to life with tons of visits, comments and social media interaction. It's even for advanced bloggers looking to reach new levels of authority and engagement with their audience.

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65 Responses to 7 Ways To Make Your Blog Load Faster

  1. Manoj
    Twitter:
    June 10, 2018 at 6:36 am #

    Hi Donna and Jason,

    Great post. The website speed is the major factor that affects our traffic and ranking. As you said, we should use only required plugins on WP site to reduce the page size and server space. The speed can be further improved by using lightweight, SEO and mobile optimized themes. All these mentioned points are accurate and provide valuable guidance to the beginners.

    Thanks for the writing. It was an interesting reading.

    Take care,
    Manoj recently posted..The 27 Best Free Social Media Icon Sets for Your Website (Part 2)My Profile

  2. Mathew Richard
    Twitter:
    April 30, 2018 at 8:20 am #

    Hi jason,

    Some great examples seen here. I am really impressed with this article. Yes we should follow these steps to load blog faster. In this online world blogs have made their own place. It is necessary to have right blog at right place .

    Thanks for sharing . And also Donna Hats off t you for making such great platform for readers .

  3. Ashish Kumar
    Twitter:
    April 27, 2018 at 2:57 pm #

    Hey Donna,

    Very nice article.

    Site speed is everything ( Not specific to the site, We like fast things, Fast internet, fast phones, fast cars ) Google page speed guidelines are the best way to not only making the website fast but also making it SEO friendly.

    I also use AMP for mobile pages. which increase the user experience on the mobile devices.
    I also think, if you have a big website, Paying for CDN is a good idea.
    Ashish Kumar recently posted..Best Encrypted And Secure Messaging Apps for Android & iOSMy Profile

  4. Praveen Rajarao
    Twitter:
    April 17, 2018 at 3:25 pm #

    Hello Jason and Donna,

    These are some valid tips to improve your blogs and make it faster and safer. I am using a free theme, I have to check and see whether it is vulnerable to any threats now.

    Thanks for a good read.

  5. Ryan Biddulph
    Twitter:
    April 17, 2018 at 11:17 am #

    Big checks on all of these tips Jason. I went with a VPS last month; night-day difference. Also changed hosts as my old hosting company no longer cut it. This happens as businesses grow, expand and scale poorly, focusing on the bottom line over quality service. Anyway though, good deal to see I am following the basics. Gotta get a CDN too; no brainer as your blog traffic and image usage rises.

    Ryan
    Ryan Biddulph recently posted..4 Tips to Make Your Blogger Outreach Campaign SizzleMy Profile

  6. Adithya Shetty
    Twitter:
    April 17, 2018 at 4:05 am #

    Hi Jason,

    Great tips to speed up the blog. As you mentioned, plugins like Smush It and wt3 cache plugin will speed up our blogs to a great extent. Also agree, too many Ads can slow down the blog’s performance!

    Talking about the web host, I use Siteground which offers site optimization feature called SuperCacher.

    Thanks for sharing!
    Adithya Shetty recently posted..50 Best Minimalist WordPress Themes (Free & Premium)My Profile

  7. Aquif Shaikh
    Twitter:
    April 16, 2018 at 10:34 pm #

    That was a really nice post, Jason. I feel optimizing your images and using caching plugins are two of the most important factors.

    However, WP Total Cache used to be good. Now, it often creates a lot of trouble. It always broke my theme. So, right now I am using a combination of Breeze and Autoptimize. For beginners, WP Fastest Cache does give better results than any other plugin.

  8. Bhawna
    Twitter:
    April 16, 2018 at 1:54 pm #

    Hi Donna.

    Earlier I was having some issue with my blog. Although it is hosted on Hostagor which is decent provider. I started using W3TC along with Cloudflre.
    I also used the Google Page Speed guidelines. They can help you get that perfect score.
    I have also started using AMP which not only helps in better speed but Google also prefers them/
    Thanks for an amazing article.

  9. Janice Wald
    Twitter:
    April 15, 2018 at 1:05 pm #

    Hi Donna,
    I do all these things. When I implemented these tips, my organic traffic rose. Thanks for the reminders. Off to share!
    Janice

  10. Emenike Emmanuel
    Twitter:
    April 13, 2018 at 10:06 pm #

    That was an amazing blog post, Jason.

    I can relate that one’s choice of theme can determine how fast his blog will load. Since I changed to a new theme, I have witnessed sharp increase in traffic and faster loading loading speed.

    Nothing can be more annoying than visiting a site that takes forever to load. It’s annoying.

    Thanks for sharing good insight on CDN. I hope to use it someday soon.

    Thanks Donna for having Jason here.

    Emenike

  11. Monna Ellithorpe
    Twitter:
    April 13, 2018 at 9:11 pm #

    Hi Donna and Jason,

    A great post. I started reading this and first thing, I’m thinking how many plugins should I get rid of and then you said normally the minimum is 20 and I’m way below that.

    I agree that plugins and photos (which is what is causing my loading problems right now- working on it). That’s a long story I won’t go into but when you said to use something to optimize the photos, that’s advice worth gold.

    Thank you so much for all of the other suggestions and recommendations you made.
    Monna Ellithorpe recently posted..Winding Rivers by BG JenkinsMy Profile

  12. Darleen Prangue
    Twitter:
    April 13, 2018 at 6:39 am #

    Hello Donna
    Hope you are doing great
    Myself totally agree that webpage speed is crucial for search engine rankings. Google has made it a factor for ranking websites on speed basis, which means you have to optimize your site for speed. love to use most of the plugins you mentioned here.
    Thanks for sharing this post
    Do share more such informative post
    Regards
    Darleen
    Darleen Prangue recently posted..How to Build an SEO Friendly WebsiteMy Profile

    • Donna Merrill April 15, 2018 at 12:13 pm #

      Hi Darlene,

      If it wasn’t for Jason doing this guest post, I could never give such great information. I know speed is important for Google, but so much more important for the user in the end.

      -Donna
      Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 17, 2018 at 11:44 am #

      Hi Darlene,

      Improving site speed is like a never-ending task. When your site grows bigger, you will have more content. You will need to upgrade your servers or plans to deliver better performance.

      Unless you can find someone to do it, else, we all have to “enjoy the pain of maintaining the site” =)
      Jason recently posted..Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today in 2018My Profile

  13. Vashishtha Kapoor
    Twitter:
    April 13, 2018 at 4:06 am #

    Hi Jason
    This is truly informative. Using CDN is very necessary to load the images and scripts from another server nearby your audience. Optimizing images is yet necessary. I have a tip for people reading this article.
    I use jetpack’s personal plan for my blog to use the free WordPress.com CDN that lets me keep a backup of my website on the cloud using vaultpress. I enjoy loading images from WordPress server which is more than awesome for me. and I spend not more than 3.5USD in a month for the same where you may spend even more buying any CDN service exclusively.

    Vashishtha
    Vashishtha Kapoor recently posted..Best Genesis Child Themes of 2018 – SEO Optimized Themes by StudioPressMy Profile

    • Donna Merrill April 15, 2018 at 12:12 pm #

      Hi Vashishtha,

      Indeed, Jason has given great information here….something I couldn’t do myself. This is why I am so happy he has done this guest post for me. I want my readers to have a great user experience and when it comes to things like CDN and the like, I am no expert!

      Glad you enjoyed this and thanks for the tip!

      -Donna
      Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 17, 2018 at 11:34 am #

      Hi Vashishtha,

      Glad you find this post informative. I don’t claim myself as an expert, I’m just sharing my thoughts and experience.

      Jetpack personal plan does offer good features for WordPress users like security, marketing, and themes. Thanks for the great tip!
      Jason recently posted..Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today in 2018My Profile

  14. Lisa Thomson
    Twitter:
    April 12, 2018 at 6:07 pm #

    Great info, Jason and Donna. I learned about the importance of plug-in maintenance a while back. I likely have more than I need still and will take another look now since I’ve read this. I’ve used the free site speed test and my site is alright (not fantastic). I’m not sure about how it is on mobile. I do have a mobile friendly plug-in tho. I have zero ads as that’s not my thing. Like Lisa P said above, I would rather have my techie get in and make sure all is right rather than spend hours myself on it (although, admittedly I have spent hours in the past troubleshooting one thing or another).

    Jason, what are your thoughts on tag clouds? I took mine down a few years ago after reading they slow a site down significantly. But I still see them on some sites and they don’t seem to be a problem. I would love to have mine back up as I think it’s super effective for navigation for visitors.

    Thanks again for sharing your expertise here, Jason. Thanks Donna for hosting Jason and sharing valuable information as always.
    Lisa Thomson recently posted..What’s Happening In My Writing WorldMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 13, 2018 at 1:51 pm #

      Hi Lisa,

      Can’t agree more. If there’s someone you can trust and able to do the job well, you should let them do it.

      “Time is a non-renewable resource, while money can be recouped.”

      Honestly, I don’t use tag clouds on my site. I’m not sure if they slow down a site.

      Yes, it’s true, tag clouds are effective for navigation! However, they can affect website SEO at some point – buildyourwebsite.co.nz/2014/10/do-tag-clouds-hurt-seo/
      Jason recently posted..4 Reasons Why You Must Use Social Media – Do It And Increase Your RevenueMy Profile

      • Donna Merrill April 15, 2018 at 11:59 am #

        Hi Lisa,

        I just love what Jason replied here that “time is a non-renewable resource, while money can be recouped.” It is so true and that is why I like to leave techie things up to a techie person.

        -Donna
        Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

  15. Moss Clement
    Twitter:
    April 12, 2018 at 8:40 am #

    Hi Jason,

    Yes, I totally agree that website speed is crucial for search rankings. Google has made it a factor for ranking websites, which means you have to optimize your site for speed. I us most of the plugins you mentioned here, but the CDN is what I haven’t considered using.

    But after reading this post and Enstine’s comment where he said that his site runs through “CloudFlare,” I know I have to use this tool. Interestingly my site is not slow, but I need to boost it up.

    Thank for sharing Jason, and thank you too Donna for publishing.

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 13, 2018 at 1:26 pm #

      Hi Moss,

      CloudFlare is available free on most of the hosting plans – http://www.cloudflare.com/plans/

      You just need to activate it within cPanel. I guess no harm to give it a try.

      Like mention in my comment above,

      Here are the speed test tools I used:-

      1) Webpagetest.org (FTTB, compression, caching, effective use of a CDN, etc).
      2) Bitcatcha.com (Ping from 8 different global locations to your site.)

      Each one has different metrics when measuring the speed of a website. Just for sharing. =)
      Jason recently posted..6 Simple Ways to Fund Your Small BusinessMy Profile

  16. Lisa P Sicard
    Twitter:
    April 12, 2018 at 7:11 am #

    Hi Jason, great tips here. Speed is SO important today for people looking at websites on their mobile today. I invested in a good CDN a few years back and it really helps.

    I also use a cache plugin and try to keep my plugins to a minimum. I almost lost my whole site when I first started due to a plugin. Always undo them one at a time and reload them one at a time and TEST. So important!

    I now outsource to a techie that I trust and who is always there to help out when needed. It is a lot of work to keep a blog going today and why spend the time yourself if you can write and network instead of learning how to do technical stuff that would take you hours vs. a techie who could have it done in minutes?

    Time is of the essence they say 🙂 Thanks Donna for having Jason explain this important piece of blogging to us. I hope you both have a great day.
    Lisa P Sicard recently posted..Why You Need a Marketing Workflow Process For Your Content TodayMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 13, 2018 at 1:17 pm #

      Hi Lisa,

      Glad you like the post.

      You were saying – “invested in a good CDN … and it really helps.” I’m sure some of the readers here would like to know which one are you using. =)

      I agree with you to outsource. It’s always better to focus on what we can do best. The problem could be, it’s hard to find someone who is a techie and trusted. End up we have to do things ourselves. =(
      Jason recently posted..10 Best Domain Name Generators for Your WebsiteMy Profile

      • Donna Merrill April 15, 2018 at 11:54 am #

        Hi Lisa,

        Jason makes a great point here when he mentions that it is difficult to find a techie who we can truest. This is why I like to have a managed site because … well you know me well and when it comes to doing it myself, I wouldn’t trust myself lol.

        -Donna
        Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

  17. Arun Kumar April 12, 2018 at 5:30 am #

    I am ashamed to say that site maintenance has been on my task list for several months. I know for a fact that at least two of them are not loading fast enough and I am even surprised that the people who visit my blog will want to continue coming back for more
    Arun Kumar recently posted..Top Five Useful Practices For SEO URL OptimizationMy Profile

  18. Faruk April 12, 2018 at 1:42 am #

    Hey “Donna Merrill”
    Nice reading it was! Agree with you that site speed plays an important role. pluigins and scripts should be minimized as much possible to keep site faster. making your site available from various servers, the CDN maximizes bandwidth, and reduces your site’s load time. Thank you, I’ll bookmarking your site.
    Faruk recently posted..How to Record Facebook Messenger Video Call on Phone/LaptopMy Profile

  19. Gaurav Kumar
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 11:38 pm #

    HI Donna,

    Since 2014, Google is considering site speed as a ranking factor. Slow sites are not good for user experience. Without a quality user experience how a site can even think of ranking high in Google search?

    Clean code, less use of plugins and good host plays important role to improve site speed. Thanks for sharing.
    Gaurav Kumar recently posted..10 Common Business Card MistakesMy Profile

    • Donna Merrill April 15, 2018 at 11:50 am #

      Hi Gaurav,

      Indeed, slow sites are not good for a user experience. When it comes to plugins, I do use them sparingly. I seen too many of my friends break their blog by overloading plugins.

      -Donna
      Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 17, 2018 at 11:23 am #

      Hi Gaurav,

      Not only Google is considering site speed, even visitors can’t tolerate a slow site. =)

      Here’s a good SEMrush article on Why Does Page Speed Impact SEO – semrush.com/blog/why-does-page-speed-impact-your-seo/
      Jason recently posted..Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today in 2018My Profile

  20. Rachel Lavern
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 11:08 pm #

    Hi Donna,

    I am guilty for not doing regular maintenance on any of my blogs. I am ashamed to say that site maintenance has been on my task list for several months. I know for a fact that at least two of them are not loading fast enough and I am even surprised that the people who visit my blog will want to continue coming back for more. They are not the slowest blogs out there as far as load time goes. There is a blog that I regularly visit that takes three minutes to load all of the time. If I did not really like that person, there is no way that I would suffer that way at least every other week.
    Rachel Lavern recently posted..Branding Has RewardsMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 13, 2018 at 12:59 pm #

      Hi Rachel,

      You were saying – “I know for a fact that at least two of them are not loading fast enough and I am even surprised that the people who visit my blog will want to continue coming back for more. ”

      In my opinion, your site may be leaking money if you are #7 High Traffic / Low-Speed Pages – conversionxl.com/blog/10-google-analytics-reports-tell-site-leaking-money/
      Jason recently posted..10 Best Web Safe Fonts For Your Blog (Work With HTML & CSS)My Profile

  21. Adrian Jock
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 4:22 pm #

    Hi Jason (and Donna!)

    Your article is a good reminder to continue the replacement of my banner ads with text ads. I started it several months ago but then I stopped it before finishing the whole process 🙂

    Btw, you may want to update your 6th sub-headline that it’s incorrect from the perspective of your topic. “Keep your banner ads to a minimum” is more accurate 😉
    Adrian Jock recently posted..How Many Fields Should Your Opt-in Form Have?My Profile

  22. Cori Ramos
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 2:51 pm #

    Hi Jason,

    Thanks for sharing these great tips with us. The load time of my site from a desktop is good but I need to improve my mobile page load speed. I have a medium rating. And since my tech skills are limited I use plugins but I still have issues to resolve like eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above the fold content.

    I pretty much follow the advice you shared with us except for using CDN. I’m not sure if that will resolve my issues but it’s worth looking into. 🙂

    Thanks for recommending MaxCDN. I would not have known where to start looking. 🙂

    Have a great day and rest of the week!

    Cori
    Cori Ramos recently posted..4 Things A New Blogger Should Invest InMy Profile

    • Donna Merrill April 13, 2018 at 8:39 am #

      Hi Cori,

      Indeed, give MaxCDN a try. It is so important to have our websites download fast on mobile. Most people use mobile more than desktops these days!

      -Donna
      Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 13, 2018 at 12:41 pm #

      Hi Cori,

      Many people are saying one of the ways to speed up a mobile site is to put JS at bottom and CSS on top of HTML files. This will let HTML content display before JS. And, by using lesser CSS and putting them up front, the mobile browser can display the content faster.

      Honestly, I don’t really tested on that.

      The better way I’m suggesting is to choose a reliable and well-coded website theme. I believe that will solve most of the issues. =)
      Jason recently posted..10 Best Web Safe Fonts For Your Blog (Work With HTML & CSS)My Profile

  23. Enstine Muki
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 9:20 am #

    Hey Jason,
    Thanks for publishing a very useful piece here on Donna’s blog. Donna was sincere in the introduction of this post 😉

    Now Jason, my blog was hosted on one of Hostgator’s share space. As my traffic grew, it became so difficult. I was willing to upgrade but their customer service completely turned me away. I moved to WPX where the service is WP dedicated and the best I have used this far.

    Beside this, I have worked on all the other aspect you mentioned. My Thrive theme has inbuilt facilities to optimize images, including lazy load on images and comments.

    I have mightly slashed down the number of plugins I use. My blog runs through CloudFlare and I do have a caching plugin. These put together brought down my blog speed from 10s to less than 2s.

    A few weeks ago, I added adsense to my blog. That brought some more speed impact on my blog. I also had some banners on my sidebar that loaded from external location.

    What I did was removed adsense and uploaded those banners to my blog space. Speed was improved.

    The last thing I discovered that amazed me was a blog commenting widget I had on sidebar that displayed some information including the authors’ gravatar pictures. Google Insight reported those gavatar images as speed factors simply because they were external resources. Of course they took some bit of more time to load. So I quickly took off that widget.

    The overall result was a massive improvement in speed.

    So what you shared here really works. Thanks for making it awesome

    Enstine
    Enstine Muki recently posted..Exit Intent ~ Increase Email Signup to 600%, reduce cart abandonment!My Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 11, 2018 at 11:56 pm #

      Hi Enstine,

      Glad you find this post useful. =)

      WPX is new to me and thanks for recommending. I will definitely have a look at it. If the service is WP dedicated I’m sure the performance can be better compared to others.

      Just for sharing, here are the speed test tools I used:-

      1) Webpagetest.org (FTTB, compression, caching, effective use of a CDN, etc).
      2) Bitcatcha.com (Ping from 8 different global locations to your site.)

      Each of the tools has different metrics when measuring the speed of a website.
      Jason recently posted..10 Best Domain Name Generators for Your WebsiteMy Profile

      • Donna Merrill April 12, 2018 at 8:20 am #

        Hi Enstine,

        Thanks for bringing up this topic and thank you Jason for your great answer.

        -Donna
        Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

        • Anil Agarwal
          Twitter:
          April 22, 2018 at 12:25 am #

          Creative song making your blog loading times faster and website speed is one of the major factors that can make or Break Your SEO success so you really need to take care of your website loading times and performance if you want better results from search engines.

          No one really likes slow loading websites and if your website is taking more than 3 seconds to load most of your visitors will abandon your site and land on your competitors website so if you really want to increase your website conversion rates and User experience make sure to focus on speeding up your wordpress website.

          As you said one of the common reasons for slower websites is using too many wordpress plugins as well as not hosting your wordpress site on faster loading web hosting platforms.

          I highly recommend you to consider dedicated web hosting platform instead of shared shared hosting environment because you will get faster loading times along with content delivery network which can make your website loading times really really faster although dedicated hosting is it expensive when compared to shared hosting plans but it is worth every single penny when it comes to increasing your website User experience and loading times.

          Thanks so much for sharing this post with us.

  24. Praveen Verma
    Twitter:
    April 11, 2018 at 12:42 am #

    Hello
    Jascon and Donna,
    Such a informative post. I always come to your blog and always learn something new. Yes, site speed is one of the most important SEO metrics and it should be in top of the priority list when anybody have a blog.

    All these points are very effective to make blog speed load faster. Great to know about CDN web server and I am going to use one of them.

    Thanks for sharing with us.

    Best wishes,
    Praveen verma

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 11, 2018 at 11:50 pm #

      Hi Praveen,

      Thanks! =)

      Yes – CDN works great if you are running a large website or eCommerce websites. It provides additional features like security other than speed. CloudFlare is free and comes along with most hosting companies. You just need to activate it within cPanel. Of course, there are limitations in free stuff but it’s enough for a standard website.
      Jason recently posted..How are Chatbots Significant in Driving Sales for Your eCommerce Business?My Profile

  25. Lorraine Reguly
    Twitter:
    April 10, 2018 at 11:14 pm #

    Thanks for the reminder to delete some of my plugins and change my ad placements!

    My site loads FAST on mobile, but not so fast on desktop.

    I hope this solves part of my problem, as I already am doing all the other things you suggested!
    Lorraine Reguly recently posted..Grow Your Business (and Email List!) Using Interact QuizzesMy Profile

  26. Marquita Herald
    Twitter:
    April 10, 2018 at 9:33 am #

    What a great topic! I’m relieved to see that I’ve got most of these covered, but I’m very curious about the CDN option so I’m definitely going to dig into that one. Your advice on plugins is spot on – several years ago my blog crashed and it took me a couple of months to get all the bugs fixed and it turned out the whole thing started with a couple of plugins that didn’t play nice together. Lesson learned. Thanks so much for the valuable information inspiration John and Donna!
    Marquita Herald recently posted..How to Stop Giving Your Energy to FrustrationMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 10, 2018 at 1:09 pm #

      Hi Marquita,

      There are few CDN options available in the market such as CloduFlare, MaxCDN, KeyCDN, etc. If you want something free, you can give CloudFlare a try. It is included in most of the hosting companies (i came across). If you want to know more how the CDN technology works, you can follow the link I mention in the article.

      Ya – WordPress plugin can be tricky sometimes. Although there’s no specific numbers of plugins a website should have, but keeping it to a minimum is better. For my site, I’m having not more than 20 plugins.

      By the way, choosing a right WordPress theme is important too.
      Jason recently posted..How are Chatbots Significant in Driving Sales for Your eCommerce Business?My Profile

  27. Donna Merrill April 10, 2018 at 8:25 am #

    Hi Jason,

    Thank you so much for contributing this wonderful article!

    -Donna
    Donna Merrill recently posted..10 Proven Ways to Master the Business of BloggingMy Profile

    • Jason
      Twitter:
      April 10, 2018 at 12:54 pm #

      Hi Donna,

      Thanks for the opportunity to share the topic here. Glad you like it.

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