
The tool I'm using in this course is this: http://www.webpagetest.org
When you open the site please click on "Advanced Settings" and use the following details:
1. Connection - Cable (or mobile 3G if you have lot of mobile traffic to your site)
2. Number of Tests to Run - 1 or 2 (2 tests will give you more accurate number, but you will wait more for the tests to finish)
3. Repeat View - First View and Repeat View
4. Capture Video - not checked (for faster testing)
5. Keep Test Private - as you wish (I personally don't mind sharing my results)
Other Tools testing that you can find useful:
Google Page Speed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com/
Pingdom: https://tools.pingdom.com/
YSlow: http://yslow.org/
With every plugin you install to Wordpress the website becomes slower and slower. So the first step in the optimization process is to uninstall the plugins which are not so important and leave only those which really matters and which you're really using.
In this video you will see that there are a lot of Wordpress websites which are not well optimized. In my opinion about 90% of the Wordpress-based websites online need optimization.
The plugin I'm using here to improve the First Byte Time is "WP Super Cache":
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/
FileZilla is the FTP client software which I'm using and recommend:
https://filezilla-project.org/
For bulk image optimization I'm using the following tools:
For Mac: https://imageoptim.com/mac
For Windows: http://nikkhokkho.sourceforge.net/static.php?page=FileOptimizer
The plugin I'm using for image optimization on the fly is Imagify:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/imagify/
You need a registration at https://imagify.io/
Autoptimize is the plugin I'm using for merging and minifying JS and CSS files:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoptimize/
This is the CloudFlare plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/cloudflare/
You will also need a registration at https://www.cloudflare.com
In this course you will learn how to optimize your WordPress site for maximum speed and fast loading. You can start with a website that loads for 15 or 20 seconds, but after you go through all the optimizations steps explained in the videos you will have a website that loads in less than 5 seconds (sometimes less than 3 seconds).
A faster websites leads to better user experience, higher visitor retentions, better conversions and higher ranking in the Google search results. Here are some real life examples and stats that support that thesis:
KissMetrics found that:
- 47% of consumers expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less;
- A 1 second delay in loading decreases customer satisfaction by 16%;
- A 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions;
CDNetworks give us other stats:
- 39% of e-retailers claimed they lost money last year due to performance or stability problems;
- Cutting just 3 seconds off load time generates a revenue increase of 7-12%;
- Amazon’s calculated that page load slowdown of just one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year;
- 21% of online shoppers abandoned shopping carts because the process was taking too long;
- Four in 10 Americans give up accessing a mobile shopping site that won’t load in just three seconds;
Even if the speed is so crucial you will still find a lot of web sites which are not optimized. A random tests shows that 90% of the WordPress websites are not optimized and the loading time of each of these sites can be reduced in half.
In the first section of the course you can see how you can test your website and to find if it is optimized and what kind of improvements it needs. Every component that affects the web site speed is explained and optimizations methods are then suggested. You will learn how to optimize the following:
- First byte time;
- Keep-alive enabled;
- Compress transfer;
- Compress images;
- Cache static content;
- Effective use of CDN;
In the course you will see a real life example. All the resources used to optimize the WordPress website are free.
About the author
My name is Stanil Dobrev and I'm a full stack web developer with 25+ years experience. I'm a WordPress developer for more than 15 years and I have created hundreds of Wordpress websites and lot of custom themes and plugins. My most popular plugins are "Fast Member", "Social Time Master" and "Interactive Video Player". I always strive to provide the best possible quality with my products and services and I have thousand of happy customers.
Important part of the WordPress development is the performance optimizations and this is something that I focused on for the last 8 years. I tested hundreds of methods for WordPress speed optimization and I have compiled the most easy and most effective of them all. In this video course I share my experience as a WordPress developer and explain the optimization process I go through for every website I build for clients. I hope you will find it useful! :-)