Did you know that besides content, Google is also very particular about the speed a website or blog loads? Yes, this is true the reason why if you’re a publisher, blogger and author, you should now make it a point that your site loads fast enough to drive traffic and engage your visitors.

The speed in delivering content to your target audience is important in making a good impression and attracting a regular stream of readers. A website that’s slow to load will only make people leave before they can even see the entire design of your site. In addition, you won’t be able to land in the top search results of Google.

What can you do then to ensure that your site is up to speed? Here are some tips that you can use.

Firstly, find out the current loading speed of your WordPress website. Use pingdom.com to determine which of your web pages are fast, slow or too big and what steps to follow.

Secondly, ensure that you’re not using too many plugins. Choose only the important ones needed for your blog or website.

Another step you can take is to remove spam comments that might have piled up on your database. Simply go to the Spam section and click on the Empty Spam link to clear your database.

The experts also recommend moving to an independent hosting account instead of a shared account if you can afford it. Shared hosting can sometimes cause websites to slow down and not function properly
because of the fact that the server is hosting several sites. Hosting providers you can use are Page.ly, WP Engine and Synthesis.

The theme of your WordPress site is also essential. Choose one that is secured, regularly updated and includes SEO features such as custom title and meta description.

Finally, optimize your database so it is not overloaded with data. Remember the database is where everything on your blog or site is stored so make sure to use the WP-DBManager plugin to back up, repair and optimize your database.

Photo via webseoanalytics

Originally posted on November 21, 2012 @ 1:00 am