Top 5 tips to speed up your wordpress blog

1. Use caching

Install the WP Super Cache plugin and enable the Gzip option. This will load only the appropriate cached content to visitors rather than loading every single script and element of your WordPress site. Your bandwidth is greatly reduced and you avoid your site going down during traffic spikes (and if you’re making a kick-butt site with kick-butt content, you should expect them more often than not).

2. Reduce the CSS files to as few as possible

Combine multiple custom CSS files into one big one. The less individual CSS files the theme needs to read the faster it’ll load. Simply copy/paste the code from individual CSS files into the main style.css or a custom.css file in your theme.

3. Reduce the Javascript files to as few as possible

Combine multiple .js files into one big one. The less individual .js files the theme needs to read the faster it’ll load. You can copy/paste the code from individual Javascript files (/js/jquery.js, /js/jquery.slider.js, /js/jquery.tooltip.js) into a new single Javascript file (/js/jquery.js,jquery.slider.js,jquery.tooltip.js).

3. Put as much Javascript code as possible in the footer

In the footer.php file of your theme, or in the footer section in your theme’s customization panel if applicable. This is so that the Javscript calls load last. This way, your visitors will be able to quickly read the content while the Javascript loads in the background.

4. Use as few plugins as possible

The less plugins need to load the more stable your WordPress site can be (and slightly faster in certain cases if a plugin isn’t properly coded). Do that by seeing if you can copy/paste code or hand-code the functionality into your theme, or using a theme that has the functionality built-in, or having it designed or customized for you. This doesn’t mean don’t use any plugins, especially since this article is suggesting plugins for WordPress optimization – just stick to only the essential ones rather than random sidebar widgets and whatnot.

5. Speed up image loading

Use the Amazon S3 storage service to upload and host your files. The images will load faster and your visitors won’t have to wait as long for them to load – especially important for web and visual designers with lots of images and portfolios to showcase. You can use the Amazon S3 for WordPress plugin to streamline image uploading and inserting into your pages and posts.