if you need WordPress site speed optimization that improves the score/load time, then I will show you how to use the Pingdom, GTmetrix and Page Speed Insights report for this. I already spoke about one of the most popular WP Rocket lessons, including W3 Total Cache and WP Fastest Cache, which together contain more than 500 comments and are used by more than 200,000 people. Let’s do your site too!
The hosting and caching plugin are two key factors in the WordPress Optimization Guide. SiteGround was rated and, according to a survey on Facebook, became # 1 (it was # 1 last year), and I use it. You can use Google Page Speed Insights and Byte Check to check the speed of your hosting / TTFB. WP Rocket was the # 1 plugin for caching in another Facebook poll, and I use it too. Yes … both of these services are paid (SiteGround costs $ 3.95 to $ 11.95 per month, and WP Rocket costs $ 39 per year), but this is what I use to tune the speed of most downloads. I have a lesson for WP Rocket, and SiteGround will provide you with free migration – both options are easy.
Table of Contents
1. Pingdom vs. GTmetrix vs. Google Page Speed Insights
According to WP Rocket, Pingdom is the most accurate way to measure load times. This is the primary metric that you should measure (not grades), but there is a correlation.
GTmetrix has more reliable recommendations … for example, which images should be optimized on the “Page Speed” tab (steps 14-16) and to use the CDN on the “YSlow” tab (step 11). It is also useful for finding slow-loading plugins if they appear several times in a report or take a long time to load on the Waterfall tab. Since the P3 Profiler plugin no longer works, use GTmetrix.
Google Page Speed Insights is only good for one thing – checking server speed. If you see that the server response time in the report should take into account the transition to a faster server (step 3). Otherwise, this is a pretty useless thing, and there are many articles that explain why. Google recommends that the response time be more than 200 ms, and you can achieve this by updating the tariffs of the current hosting company to add more server resources or switch to a host that uses technology with a higher speed (NGINX servers, solid-state drives, PHP7, HTTP / 2, HHVM, etc.).
2. What to do if hosting is slow
Launch your website through bytecheck.com and check TTFB (time to the first byte). Ideally, this should be less than 500 ms (best of 200 ms). This and reduced server response time in Page Speed Insights are good indicators of server speed. If the server is slow, you can either upgrade the tariffs using the current host or try SiteGround (the host I use), which almost always gets TTFB> 200 ms.
3. Download time 200 ms on SiteGround
Hosting is the # 1 factor in the WordPress Optimization Guide, and you’ve seen my reports.
I use SiteGround, which took first place in a recent Facebook poll conducted by the WordPress Hosting Group, which was attended by over 6500 people who are knowledgeable about hosting
In last year’s poll, he also became No. 1. People who switched to SiteGround posted the results on Twitter
More expensive tariffs include more server resources (the number of servers is the number 1 factor in the WordPress optimization guide). You can see the full StartUp vs. Tariff Comparison Chart. GrowBig vs. GoGeek. GrowBig provides you with about 2 server resources like StartUp, and GoGeek is a semi-dedicated server that gives you even more resources. GrowBig + GoGeek have priority support, and the ability to host an unlimited number of sites. The price for Cloud hosting jumps up to $ 80 / year, but it comes with 2CPU + 4 GB of RAM and is faster than GoGeek.
I like SiteGround because …
He is # 1 on a Facebook poll in 2017
And No. 1 in a survey on Facebook in 2016
Appreciated in discussions here, here and here
Ivica Launches WordPress Speed Up Group and Ranks Them as # 1
People who switch to SiteGround usually see good load time improvements.
Average load time is 1.3, and I have 200ms in Pingdom + .5s in GTmetrix
Speed technology uses SSD, NGINX, HTTP / 2, PHP7 servers
SG Optimizer supports updating the site using the latest version of PHP
Cloud hosting includes HHVM, which is even faster than PHP7
Choice of 5 data centers (select the one closest to your visitors)
They are the only ones posted on all 3 pages of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal
Automatic daily backup
WordPress Automatic Updates
Weekly Email Notifications
cPanel is easy to use (view demo)
All plans come with free Let’s Encrypt SSL.
Constantly release new security updates
Activating 1-Click Cloudflare makes everything very easy
I usually get 100% of the time, but 99.99% is guaranteed
Technical support usually responds within 10 minutes
SiteGround will transfer you for free (just fill out the ticket)
SiteGround is NOT an EIG company (EIG has a terrible reputation)
Very useful in groups of Facebook, WordCamps.
I recommended SiteGround to 50 people in July, not a single one refused
Their semi-dedicated tariff comes with 4 times the number of server resources, unlike conventional shared hosting,
WordPress 1-step layout and PCI compliance if you launch the eCommerce website
Refusal to participate in an affiliate program – if you decide to register on SiteGround using my affiliate link, I will donate a considerable chunk to you at no cost. This year I donated $ 3,000 to the Red Cross for Hurricane Harvey – next year, the funds will probably go to the needs of children. Your support will help a lot, and I would really appreciate it. I try to make my reviews objective and supported by evidence in the form of polls, tweets, and real conversations. If you do not want to use on such terms, here is a non-affiliate link to SiteGround. In any case, I really believe that this is the best WordPress hosting and your site will work faster / better … do research on Google / Facebook groups and you will find that most people say the same thing.
Your hosting company will NOT automatically upgrade to the latest version of PHP, as your theme/plugins may not be compatible (and they don’t want to break the site). This means that you need to do this yourself or request help from your host). This also means that if you have been on the same host for many years and never made updates, you are probably still using PHP5.
Step 1. Install the PHP version plugin to check the current version.
Step 2. Run the PHP compatibility checker to make sure the theme/plugins are compatible.
Step 3: Switch to PHP7 by contacting your host’s instructions or Google for a specific host. If you use SiteGround WordPress hosting, their SG Optimizer plugin does everything for you (it will check the current version of PHP, compatibility, upgrades to PHP7). In addition, Supercacher takes care of the static cache, dynamic cache, Memcache, and even HHVM if you are in their cloud tariff.
5. Configuring the Cache plugin (ideally WP Rocket)
There are many cache plugins, but this one, according to a Facebook poll, is the best. Your plugin and hosting your cache are the two most important factors, so try buying a WP Rocket if you have $ 39.
If you invest $ 39 in your purchase of WP Rocket, you will see my WP Rocket tutorial. The plugin is easy to configure, often updated with new features, has extensive documentation and amazing support. It combines Cloudflare, MaxCDN, lazyloading videos /photos/iframes, database cleanup, query line deletion, and more. Most other cache plugins do not work with database cleanup or lazyload, in which case you will need to install WP-Optimize and Lazy Load For Videos plugins. With WP Rocket, you do not need to install separate plugins for these functions.
6. Cleaning up the database
Deletes spam and recycle folders, trackbacks, pingbacks, database tables, transients and thousands of potential mail fixes and draft messages that accumulated during the work, and which WordPress saves automatically. This junk and slow down your site. I recommend using WP Rocket or WP-Optimize to remove them every week or so. Everything should be fine, but just in case, make a backup copy of your site if you are cleaning the database for the first time! If you use WP Rocket, run (and check) it in the database settings
7. Configure Cloudflare
Free Cloudflare improves speed, security and spam protection. Their CDN places your files in 115 data centers, which helps to upload resources to their servers (reducing the load on yours). Data centers also reduce the geographical distance needed to deliver your content to visitors. Cloudflare is easy to configure using WP Rocket (I will list alternative configuration methods below).
8. Cloudflare speed settings
Go to Cloudflare speed settings and copy them. Check your site, considering that Auto Minify and Rocket Loader can cause problems. Turn on SG Railgun and accelerated mobile links.
9. Cloudflare Hotlink Protection
Hotlink protection prevents users from using their images on their website – which sucks your hosting processor (bandwidth). Go to Cloudflare in the scrape shield settings and turn it on
10. WPF Page Rules for Cloudflare
Cloudflare says: “We recommend creating a page rule to exclude the administrative part of the site from Cloudflare. Features like Rocket Loader and Auto Minification can inadvertently violate the back-end functions in the admin section. ”
11. MaxCDN
MaxCDN – why use another CDN if you already have Cloudflare? But why …
MaxCDN has 56 additional data centers
MaxCDN Uses Faster 10GB SSD Servers
MaxCDN does not charge for HTTPS traffic, but Cloudflare charges
MaxCDN has dashboards that provide a wealth of information about your cache files.
The MaxCDN team helped me configure my CDN and improve the GTmetrix YSlow by 8%, putting a cherry on the cake to make my report 100% perfect (see below)
MaxCDN allows you to protect your account using a two-step authentication process; you can forward the IP addresses of people who are allowed access to your account
Step 1. Sign up for MaxCDN using my 25% coupon, or ask for a free trial.
Step 2. Create a pull zone (see the manual ).
Step 3: In the settings of this zone, go to the Pull Zone and select Manage → Settings. Find a CNAME that should look something like this: omm.onlinemedia.netdna-cdn.com
Step 5: In MaxCDN, go to the “manage cache” tab in the pull zone settings and clear the files …
Step 6: Launch your site in GTmetrix, the “content delivery network” in YSlow should be green.
If you expand the elements in GTmetrix and see that the problem is related to your CDN, contact MaxCDN Support, which should help you fix it. They have great support.
12. The whitelist of IP addresses
MaxCDN, Cloudflare, and on your server all IP addresses must be white so that they work correctly and do not allow the firewall to block each other’s IP addresses.
Find the IP address of your server – this is in your cPanel (Google host instructions).
MaxCDN server IP white list – go to the MaxCDN white list area and insert the IP address of your server.
Cloudflare server IP address whitelist – Go to Cloudflare firewall settings and do the same.
MaxCDN / Cloudflare IP whitelisting on your host – contact your host to see if you can use the whitelist of Cloudflare IP addresses and MaxCDN IP addresses since most hosts do not allow you to use the whitelist.
13. Lazyload Videos / Iframes
Delay in loading videos until you scroll down the page and they become visible. I was able to reduce the download time of several messages by about 6 seconds by simply turning this on (since the video is a heavy item). You can do the same with photos, but the constant download is annoying, so I turned it off. If you are not using WP Rocket, you can do this using the Lazy Load For Videos plugin.
Light Youtube Embeds is another option to download videos only after pressing the play button. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel (and you will need some coding knowledge), so I followed this tutorial on light Youtube embed. You basically embed the code in your web template and another code in the CSS and then embed each video using the div code. If you need help, you can get my developer to do it for you, but it is of the utmost importance.
14. Serving scaled images
Images can be optimized in three ways. You can launch any page through GTmetrix, and it will tell you about all non-optimized images, but ONLY for this page. Start with images that appear on multiple pages (as this speeds up the loading of multiple pages), and then move on to images that appear on separate pages.
Serve Scaled Images- resize large images to smaller ones. GTmetrix tells you the correct sizes. Just click on the image in GTmetrix, change it to a new size and replace.
Create a cheat sheet so you can use the correct sizes before uploading images …
Slider: 1903 (w) x 400 (h)
Carousel Images: 115 (h)
Image Widget: 414 (w)
A full-size image of the blog: 680 (w)
Featured Image: 250 (w) x 250 (h)
Never use the drag and drop to resize function in the visual editor, as this only reduces the size of the displayed image (and not the actual image). It is best to resize to the correct one before loading.
15. Specify image sizes
Specify Image Dimensions – this means that you need to specify the width and height of the image in HTML or CSS. This usually happens in widgets, HTML or CSS sections of the website, as the visual editor will take care of this automatically. GTmetrix will again provide you with the correct dimensions, now you need to find this image and specify the width + height
16. Lossless image compression
Optimize Images – compresses images without loss using Imagify or Kraken (both are available until you reach the monthly limit). There are other completely free plugins with unlimited compression, but DO NOT use them because they have errors, do not work, or may break images.
Sign up for Imagify
Install Imagify Plugin
You will be offered the following instructions:
Enter your API key from your Imagify account
Set the compression level (normal, aggressive, ultra)
Massively optimize all images (photo below) on your site
Once you have reached your limit, pay 4.99 US dollars or wait for the next month to reset your limit
17. Saving images in the correct format
Using the correct PNG / JPEG format – PNG is an uncompressed format (larger file size) and should be used in simple images with few colors. JPEG is compressed (smaller file size), it slightly reduces the image quality of a smaller one and with more colors.
18. WP Disable
WP Disable allows you to disable the settings in WordPress, which consume the processor and slow down the site. It also has options for signal control (if you remember, there is a heartbeat control plugin, now you can remove it and just use WP Disable) … as well as several other parameters that can speed up the website/admin panel. Go to settings and just turn off what you are not using …
WP Disable Tips
Disable ALL that you are not using
Removing spam is a good idea.
Emojis, Google Maps, and Gravatars take a long time to load.
Pingbacks and trackbacks are usually not worth the extra resources.
Set up post versions for 3-5 backups, hundreds of copies not needed
Various options on the request tab can increase load times.
19. Localhost of Google Analytics
On the right side of the WP Disable settings, you can enter the Google Analytics UA code. This should fix the caching element “leverage browser caching for Google Analytics, which is common in GTmetrix, Pingdom, and Google Page Speed Insights. Be sure to remove any other Google Analytics tracking codes and plugins and make sure your GA continues to track user data.
20. Minimization of plugins
Have you removed the Hello Dolly plugin and WordPress importer? What about replacing the Twitter plugin with the Twitter widget or the Facebook plugin with the Facebook widget? Instead of using the Google Analytics plugin, why not paste the tracking code directly into the footer (or better yet, place it locally)? Yoast generates an XML sitemap, so the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is not needed. Browse your plugins and deactivate/delete the ones you do not need. You should also avoid using 2 separate plugins if they have duplicate functionality.
21. Avoid large CPU modules
The slowest download plugins include related post, statistics, sitemap, chat, calendar, page collectors and plugins that run ongoing checks/processes or show several times in your GTmetrix report.
AdSense Fraud Monitoring
Google XML Sitemaps are Better than WordPress
Check broken links
Permanent Contact with WordPress
Contact Form 7 (https://contactform7.com/loading-ja…)
Contextual Messages
Digi auto links
Disqus Comment System
Developer Divi
Main grid
Fuzzy SEO Optimizer
Google sitemaps
Jetpack
NextGEN Gallery
Newstatpress
ID discovery
Revolution slider
S2 member
SEO Auto Links & Related Posts
Related Posts
Slimstat analytics
Sumome
Vaultpress
Visual composer
Woocommerce
WordPress Facebook
WordPress Related Posts
WordPress Popular Posts
WP statistics
WP-PostViews
WP Power Stats
wpCloaker
WPML
Another plugin Related Posts
Yuzo Related Posts
The P3 plugin has never been updated, but used to do a lot of work to find slow download plugins – it may not work, but try it if you want. Go to “Plugins” and go to P3 → Scan Now → Start Scan → Auto-Scan. View the results.
22. Disabling unused plugin settings.
Go through each of your plugins and determine which settings can be disabled (this will reduce the CPU). For example, in Yoast, in Settings> General> Features
Examples
Wordfence Live Traffic Reports
Ongoing Broken Link Checker Checks
Chat and calendar plugins that constantly work
Statistical plugins that constantly collect data
Related Post and Popular Post plugins that store tons of data
Disable ALL settings that you are not using, as many of them will consume the processor
23. Using the Fast Slider Plugin
Soliloquy is a premium plugin slider ($ 19). I used on several sites and it worked great. The plugin is easy to use (drag and drop), responsive and comes with several templates. It is not as reliable as the Revolution Slider or Layer Slider, but they have heavy code and this will almost certainly slow down your WordPress site. For a minimal smooth slider – Soliloquy does an awesome job.
Meta Slider is a free minimal slider plugin recommended by Ivica from WordPress Speed Up Facebook Group (see resources page). I have not used it, but it has good reviews.
24. Using the Fast Gallery Plugin
Envira Gallery is a premium/lite $ 29 gallery plugin recommended by Ivica, WP Beginner and others. NextGEN Gallery and Essential Grid are slow, so do not use them. Envira also has a lightweight (free) version, but it does not come with albums, tags, social media integration, gallery templates, deep linking, pagination, eCommerce, image processing, etc.
25. Using the Fast Social Sharing plugin
Sassy Social Share – Lightweight social sharing buttons with over 100 social networks, bookmarking services, and customizable icons. Recommended by Ivica on the resource page.
26. AMP (accelerated mobile pages)
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a recent Google project that speeds up the loading of mobile pages when adding “AMP” to mobile fragments. This is done through the AMP plugin, which affects the design of the mobile site (it looks decent, in my opinion), I suggest trying it, see if you like it, and then save it or just delete it if you didn’t like it.
Instructions
Install the AMP plugin using Automattic (add AMP pages)
Install the Glue For Yoast SEO AMP plugin if using Yoast (customizes the design)
Add / amp / to any page of your website to see how it looks and make sure it works
Go to Yoast Settings → AMP to change the design and enable custom message types
Wait for Google to return your site and add the AMP mark to the mobile search results.
Go to the accelerated mobile pages section of the Google Search Console to see errors.
A common problem is the images displayed at the top of the posts. There is a solution to this, but it is not perfect. You can either have no image or set the default value in Yoast under SEO → AMP → Design → Default Image. This image by default will show if NO is set with the image, and if so, it will be displayed at the top of the message. You can read the Yoast AMP manual, but here I basically just summed it up.
27. Gravatars Optimization
Gravatars devotes a lot of time to download, especially if you have a lot of blog comments (try starting a comment post via GTmetrix and you’ll see how bad it is). You have several options:
Disable Gravatars Completely
Set Gravatar to Blank by default
Remove comments that don’t add value.
Set the default Gravatar to a custom image on the server
Limit Gravatar images to smaller sizes (e.g. 32px)
Number comments in WP Disable to only show 20 comments at a time
Try caching Gravatars with FV Gravatar Cache or Harrys Gravatar Cache plugin
28. Avoid Google Maps
Google maps are known for slow loading, and when they are in the footer, they are loaded on every page/message on the website. Perhaps you just use them on your contact page?
29. Avoid advertising
Google AdSense and other ad networks usually slow down the site (extremely), as they make requests to other servers to serve ads. And if these servers are not optimized for fast loading, they will ruin your boot time and GTmetrix report. I recommend using affiliate links because they do not increase load time and are more individual – almost always lead to an increase in the number of $. You can minimize the number of ads and make sure your advertisers are on fast servers, but you will probably run into problems with GTmetrix.
30. Checking AWStats for High CPU
AWStats is a tool built into most cPanels hosting that provides statistics on CPU usage. It tells you that some bots, images, uploaded files, and even IP addresses consume a lot of CPU. You can also use the WP Server Stats plugin, but I think AWStats is doing a great job.
AWStats helps you find:
High-speed scanners
High-Speed IP Addresses
High Bandwidth Files
High bandwidth files (e.g. images)
Total bandwidth usage (for monitoring)
31. Limit scanners/spiders
Finding bounding scanners/spiders typically consumes a large part of the processor/bandwidth.
Googlebot is usually the most resource-intensive bot. You can limit the crawl speed in the settings of the Google Search Console site, but this is only recommended if it causes a high level of performance.
32. Cancel JavaScript
Create a backup copy of the functions.php file and add this code to it – you’re done. Double-check your site to make sure everything looks/works correctly. If this does not fix the item in Pingdom, try using the Scripts To Footer plugin. This step may require testing and using different versions of the code, but I borrowed the code from this article, in it you can get more clarification.
33. Adding Fading Headers
Most cache plugins should take care of this automatically when you enable browser caching (e.g. WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache). But if your Pingdom report on the YSlow tab still displays “add fading headers,” add this code to the top of your
34. Removing a query string from static resources.
This item has been a headache for many people (including me). Fortunately, several recent updates have been made by the most popular cache plug-ins, which make it easy to “remove query string from static resources” in GTmetrix and other speed reports.
35. Minimize redirects
This usually means that you changed the www or HTTP version of your site, but did not change the links/images to display them. Try the Better Search & Replace plugin to fix them in bulk.
36. Using a lightweight theme
If your WordPress site was slow from the start, then the reason for this is probably a hosting or theme. I remember developing a website using the e Law Business theme, and it was SO SLOW that I had to distort the whole website and use the Executive Pro theme from StudioPress. This is due to poor coding by the theme developer or too many unnecessary built-in functions.
StudioPress themes are light (fast loading), responsive, HTML5, safe and reliable (they will not slow down or stop working, like some ThemeForest themes). They are used by more than 200,000 people, built into the Genesis Framework (recommended by the founder of Yoast and WordPress), and they have lightweight Genesis plugins.
I know that you do not want to change your topic. But if your design is bad anyway, the StudioPress theme can help to fix it a little. I wrote a review on StudioPress if you decide to check out.
37. Website No. 1 for hosting account
The server has a limited amount of resources on the hosting account. Hosting many websites will slow them down, especially if these sites require a lot of traffic for demanding plugins or they simply consume a lot of CPU in AWStats. Either host only one site per account, or make sure that your plan has enough resources to properly host sites.
38. WordPress Update
Update your WordPress core, theme, plugins, and frameworks if there is one thing (like Genesis).
39. Find slow download pages
You can use Google Analytics to find load times (and recommendations), the most viewed pages, and the slowest to load. Log in to Google Analytics, go to Behavior → Site Speed → Speed Suggestions. Click “Page Speed Suggestions” to see recommendations, although I note that GTmetrix recommendations are usually better.
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