A detailed guide that helps to optimize WordPress for Google Page Speed, which further helps to rank better in search engines. Google officially announced that page loading speed will also be considered as a factor in deciding the rankings. So, its time tweak your blog to improve Google Page Speed score and lets start with the how-to part.
Before starting with this guide, we recommend to note down the Google Page Speed score of your website by using this free tool. Once done with the below things, you can compare previous score with the final result and that way you can better notice the difference. Also you can Lazy Load Images to Improve Loading Speed
What is optimum Google Page Speed Score?
Well, we have seen many blogs with good Page Speed Scores and for now we can consider 90 as the optimum score. This means your website will be faster than 90% of all the websites and to tweak the remaining 10% is almost not possible in many cases. Many factors are to be considered and the most vital ones that effect loading speed are images and scripts. If your blog has a minimal design, then chances of getting better page speed scores are high.
Optimize your WordPress Blog for Google Page Speed
Lets start with the things you need to implement on your blog to attain a page speed score of 90. We have already tested these methods and significantly noticed an improvement in loading speed.
Minify CSS and JavaScript files
Minifying and Combining CSS, Javascript files is the first step to be carried out to improve page loading speed. WP-Minify is an useful plugin that helps to combine CSS, JS files on your WordPress Website. Just install the plugin and configure it by enabling JavaScript, CSS, HTML minification.
Leverage Browser Caching
One of the popular.htacess techniques that helps to set the expiry time for some media formats like JPG, PNG etc. Defining expiration date for certain file formats will help to catch them, which will further helps to improve page loading speed. Here is a detailed guide on how to Leverage Browser Caching in WordPress, hope that will be helpful for you.
Use less possible Plugins
If you are using a bunch of plugins then we recommend to uninstall and remove some heavy weight plugins that are rarely required. Avoid plugins, wherever you can get the desired functionality using a code or snippet. Stick to a selected number of plugins and run a performance test by using P3 Plugin. Based on the results you can take further action.
Compress Images and Graphics
It is always good to use compressed images in your articles, as they not only save bandwidth but also helps to increase page loading speed. One handy plugin available to compress images is Wp-Smushit, which can be installed and used directly on all uploaded images. In some cases, you might be using some graphics on your blog, try to avoid them or serve compressed versions.
Effect of Social Share Buttons
Social share buttons are necessary to share your content across social media networks, but at the same time they have negative impacts on loading speed. You can use HTML version of social buttons or can use the Lazy Load Floating share Buttons to improve page loading speed. One other method is to move all scripts to the footer of your WordPress website.
Final thing is check Google Page Speed using this free tool. After following the above steps you definitely should notice some change is the page speed scores. Share your previous and present page speed scores by dropping a comment here.
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Nice Read, the main things is how you handle the external scripts, that you helped me using WP-Minify already. I have written on the same topic.
i have checked my blog my blog PageSpeed Score of 88 (out of 100). so Google told me this is good job
now me happy but i am confuse please tell me What it is right ?
CSS Sprites is like a boon to Google Page Speed. Every developer should concentrate on that
Great tips Bharat. Having a cache plugin installed is the best way to speed up a WordPress blog.
What i have experienced is that a minimal theme can increase your page speed to a great extent.
Anyways thanks for sharing out your points.
Normally social sharing codes provided by facebook, twitter, etc renders iframes at run-time. These iframes increases page-size and slow-down your website.
If you need social sharing on your side, without compromising speed and load time, try out rtSocial plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rtsocial). It uses non-blocking JavaScript.
Hi Rakshit, thanks for letting us know about this awesome plugin. I installed rtSocial on WPSquare and now I’m happy that Social Share buttons will no long effect page loading speed. You guys at rtCamp have really done a great job.
Awesome interlinking to old articles. Byw, You forgot to mention wpsquare page speed.
Thanks for dropping by and Google Page Speed Score for WPSquare is 98.
I need to try magnifying the CSS and JavaScript files. Hope this works..
Compress Images and Graphics : well its tuff task for a blogger who is expert in designing & development
I have not used WP minify plugin yet. I use W3 Total Cache which add browser, page, object and database caching as well as minify and content delivery network (CDN) to WordPress. Should I need to use WP Minify plugin too?
As W3 Total Cache Plugin already got minification engine, there no need to use WP Minify plugin again.
There’s also Google code for Minify, so I was wondering if you could please tell me the difference, if any, between the plugin WP-Minify and uploading the Google Code Minify at http://code.google.com/p/minify/ ?
you can also use TinyPNG and JPEGmini to optimize your images – up to 70% less size. Pretty good IMHO
Best Regards!