SpeedHost.in Blog Hosted on WordPress

WordPress is a pretty awesome Content Management System and we can say this with conviction because our blog runs on the very same platform. The only complain that we have with WordPress is, by default it’s very slow to load.

Page load time is become so important today that you can find your website at the bottom of search engine results, if your page isn’t quick to load. People don’t appreciate slow loading websites and you can easily lose most of your visitors for a few extra milliseconds of page load time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to change it. We’ve compiled a list of tips that you can use to speed up your WordPress Website. Let’s take a look.

1] Use a good Theme/FrameWork: If you’re building your WordPress website by using a theme or framework as a base, then you need to ensure that you have the best one. Look out for themes or frameworks that are simple and have a clean code. If the core of your website functions smoothly then the effect of it will definitely show in your website’s performance. We recommend ‘Thesis Theme Framework’ for your WordPress website but there are many similar options available that you can choose from.

2] Use a caching plugin: Caching can improve the load times of your website considerably. It ‘s a process where parts of your website are saved on the visitor’s browser so that it only needs to be loaded once instead of every time a visitor lands on your website. This works brilliantly for your regular visitors. We recommend W3 Total Cache plugin, which will help you achieve the caching capabilities on your website.

3] Optimize images: Images are a very important part of content and that’s one reason why you will find many websites with images. This can add considerable amount of load to the website resulting in pathetic page load times. Optimizing all images without losing quality is possible but to do this manually for each and every image is going to be a real task. Fortunately you can use a plugin called WP Smush.it that can automatically optimize all the images on your website. The plugin performs this magic of optimizing images by stripping the unused colors from indexed images and metadata from Jpegs.

4] Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): If you’ve never heard what CDN does, it takes all your static files like images, Css, etc on your website and makes it available to users through a server closer to them. This ensures that your visitors around the world will be able to load your website in the quickest possible time. Most CDN services are available for a price but if you’re short on budget, we recommend using CloudFlare.

5] Invest in good hosting: Don’t look for the best price, rather look for great quality. Hosting plays an important role to ensure your website is always up. Free hosting may look attractive but a regularly offline website is going to drive your traffic away. Also Shared hosting might be a good alternative to start off with but as your site grows it’s advisable to move to better types of hosting like VPS hosting. This will ensure that you can entertain more traffic on your website without the fear of your website slowing down or crashing.

We hope these tips work wonders and makes your website snappier. We would love to hear some of your secrets on how you speed up your WordPress website, so feel free to leave a comment below.

You’ve probably heard this a zillion times “WordPress is the most popular and used Content Management System”.  There are many factors that play a vital role in the success of WordPress and one of them has got to be the thousands of plugins that are freely available. Although having so many plugins is a good thing, deciding which ones to use for your first ever WordPress website is going to be a bit intimidating. But we’ve got you covered with this list of must have plugins for your website.

1] BackUpWordPress [Backup] – When you’re site breaks due to a bad code or a hacker attack, the one thing that will save you from starting all over again is a backup of your website. BackUpWordPress plugin is a simple plugin which can help you take backups of your website. You can schedule and also exclude files and folders from your backups. You also get an option to send your backup file to your email which is a welcome feature. If you’re not sure how to take a manual backup of your WordPress website then this plugin is what you’ll need.

2] WordPress SEO by Yoast [SEO] – Optimizing your WordPress website for search engines is not an easy task. There are loads of things involved when it comes to SEO and getting them all right is going can be a daunting task. Fortunately, you can use WordPress SEO by Yoast for all your SEO needs. This plugin combines all required settings under one roof making it easier to manage your SEO efforts. We loved the simplicity of this tool and the way each and every setting is explained with warning notifications.

3] BulletProof Security [Security] – Security has always been a major concern with WordPress websites. If you don’t take adequate measures to fortify the security, your WordPress website is going to take a beating for it. You can safeguard your website with the BulletProof Security plugin which just needs one click to setup. This plugin modifies the .htaccess file of your website, which probably is one of the best ways to secure a WordPress website. The plugin can also take backups of your website and display a under maintenance page when you’re working on a major upate on your website. You’re website is also safeguarded from Bruteforce attacks thanks to the Login Security & Monitoring Website Security features included within the plugin.

4] Akismet [Comment Spam] – No sooner you launch your WordPress website, you’ll notice that your website’s hit with loads of spam comments. If you want to avoid comment spam, simply install Akismet plugin and you’re good to go.

5] Share This [Social] – Most of the new WordPress themes come along with social media buttons for sharing. In case if your theme doesn’t include it, you can use the plugin Share This to add this functionality to your website. Social sharing buttons gives your website visitors an easy medium to share your content. This gets you more visibility and hence installing this plugin is definitely a good idea.

These five plugins will give you a head start with your new WordPress website. You can explore more plugins as and when you need it. Just a tip, always update all plugins and delete unwanted ones to avoid any potential issues.

Do you know of any other awesome WordPress plugins that we’ve missed? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.