Joost De Valk put together a presentation for the A4U Expo in Europe yesterday. His slideshow is great. And I think I’ll do a few posts focusing on the points he put together.
Install WP-SuperCache
Joost recommends that you install a plugin called WP-SuperCache and that you enable its gzip compression feature. I’ve use this plugin on all my WordPress sites. It’s wonderful. It speeds up your wordpress installation by a huge amount, which means better indexing on Google and other search engines. Enabling the compression feature isn’t necessary, and may not even be a feature that your server allows you to implement. I know that I wasn’t able to use it when I hosted on GoDaddy, although I can now at MidPhase.
Move .htaccess files to your server config if possible
To be honest, I’m not a huge server-side guy. This recommendation makes little to no sense to me. I’ll be researching it and get back to you.
Combine CSS Files into 1 Big CSS file (javascript too)
This is a great suggestion. The server loads all of your css and javascript files before it begins loading the rest of the page. And then, usually, it caches the files and applies them to all the pages on your site where the CSS file or javascript file is called. Combining all the little external files into one big one will make your site load a lot faster.
Use CSS Sprites
CSS Sprites are pretty neat. If you want an explanation of what they are A List Apart has a pretty good entry explaining the Sprite. But basically, the idea is to load one image that will act as many images on your page.
Add a PHP opcode Cache
This only really matters if your server is serving up thousands of pages a day. If your small, don’t worry too much about it. But if you want to worry about it, you can learn about different opcode cacher’s at Ewdison Then.
Kill some plugins
In Joost’s words, “some plugins are god awful”. Some plugins slow your site down. They have tons of mysql calls, and are just generally bad for your site’s SEO and speed health. There are ways to get around plugins, though. Smashing Magazine, for example, has a bunch of really good tips for putting together some really neat elements that, until previously, required a plugin. My point is, you don’t actually need a plugin for everything.
Still slow? Switch Hosting
Your hosting company plays a huge role in your site’s overall performance especially if your on shared hosting. Joost swears by WestHost, I use MidPhase. The truth is, both companies are owned by the same parent company, and they are only slightly different. I have had some trouble with MidPhase (they kept me on a slow, broken server for a long time), but most of my experiences have been pretty good.
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