Best way to get the fastest WordPress site with existing template
-
I have a WordPress website that I started building for free and eventually paid the $50 bucks for the premium version. My goal right now is to increase the speed. The current speed rating for the site on Google Insights is 60/100 for mobile and 66/100 for desktop. I have used some plugins to help me increase the speed, but the previous number were the best I could do. How can I get this site at least into the 90/100 range? Should I buy another template, or can I hire someone to go through and optimize it. I would like the best option that is as cost effective as possible as this is a hobby site for me. Thanks!
-
This is a hard question to answer without knowing the reasons why your site is possibly under performing on page speed tests. There could be a variety of reasons.
I'd recommend a caching plugin, and that your images are all appropriately sized and then, as Stramark suggests, you could look at a CDN to help alleviate the problem.
A new theme/template may help, but is unlikely to be any sort of silver bullet.
-
Consider moving over to a CDN. For instance wp engine helps you move over and is way faster..
-
I haven't chosen to ignore a lot of the page speed recommendations personally. To me this is one area where Google has been unclear on and I have chosen to follow it the way I think they mean.
They have said that site speed is a ranking factor. But does that mean their page speed score is factored into it? I tend to think it does not. Which would you rather have, a site that loads in .5 seconds with a page speed score of 60 or one that loads in 3 seconds with a 100 page speed score? I want the first one. I use the suggestions as simple suggestions that I have to determine if they are worth the time and effort.
Do you have a link to your site, I can tell you what I would do.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Help finding someone to handle crashing site/site optimization.
I need someone who can handle website/WordPress issues as they come up.For example, my site has gone down 4 times tonight, and my host can't figure it out. They also keep recommending that I optimize my site, but I don't know how. I need a go-to web person for this sort of thing. Any recommendations?
On-Page Optimization | | cbrant7770 -
SEO For Replacement Site
I have a client with a website that has gotten a bit outdated. We've already built his new website and optimized it, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to replace the site while doing the least amount of damage to his current Google rankings. He's ranking #1 for some very competitive keywords that are responsible for the bulk of his revenue, so we want to jeopardize that. We've already built a new site and written all new content, although the homepage page title, h1 header and meta descriptions will all remain what they currently are. I'm also trying to keep the keyword density as close to the current site as possible. I am aware of transferring all existing site URLS using 301 redirects. Can anyone provide any tips that I should use when replacing the site? Should I expect a slight rankings drop or am I worrying about nothing?
On-Page Optimization | | atstickel0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
Are lots of wordpress tags hurting my SEO?
When I started my blog 4 years ago and didn't know what I was doing, I set it up to be organized using tags (no categories). I have around 20 tags and around 250 articles. Each blog article typically has 2-4 tags associated with it. There is a lot of topic overlap and putting each post in only one category wouldn't work. I have been no indexing, do follow my tag pages because they are just a list of post titles, but I'm wondering if the whole situation is hurting my SEO. On my homepage I have a sidebar menu/list of all the tags so I have link juice going to no indexed (but dofollow) pages. Reducing the number of tags would be bad for user experience because people who were looking for info on a specific topic wouldn't be as easily able to find what they want. Ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | KateV0 -
Site Speed Expert Referral Needed
We're looking for someone who can diagnose some site speed issues AND adjust the code, servers, etc. as needed. Does anyone know of an expert in this area?
On-Page Optimization | | BryanPhelps-BigLeapWeb0 -
What's the Best Way to Hide Redirects from Search Engines?
Hey everybody, I like to use php redirects for affiliate links so they look better. I keep them all in the same directory. I read recently that these may hurt SEO. A couple quick questions: Is this the best way to redirect affiliate links? Should I simply block the directory in robots.txt? Any other suggestions from you SEO guyses and galz? Thanks! Jared
On-Page Optimization | | JaredB0 -
What is the best practice for changing a url of an existing page
I a looking through the on-page SEO reports in SEOmoz for one of my sites. It suggests that I change the url of a particular page to match the desired search term I want to rank for. In this case it is a site for a local business and the url is example.com/testimonials. when it probabaly should have instead been example.com/city-business-reviews. I have just a couple links to this page and I'm stuck towards the bottom of page 1 in the SERPs currently. Questions... 1. Should I change the url to include the exact keyword term I want the page to rank for? 2. If yes, what is the best method to ensure that any existing link juice to the current url is retained? Would I change the url, then create a new page with the old url and apply a 301 redirect to point it to the new page? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | fastestmanalive0 -
Best Way To Host Images For Image Optimization
I need an image optimization expert to tell me whether or not we are hosting images properly for SEO. Currently, we upload all images to Picasa and then call them out with a webpart in our content management system. See example here - http://www.tennisnow.com/Photos/2011-BNP-Paribas-Open-Day-5.aspx Here's an example of the url that is attached to each image - http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1Oyc-Zgkrpk/TX5H-Pfyd7I/AAAAAAAARbc/nG3Cw-G5tsY/s400/1215548409_FU9xA-L.jpg We have a lot of images, and we've hosted them on Picasa for speed purposes based on a recommendation from our developer (makes the pages load faster). I've read that Google can now factor page load time into its ranking parameters. We are not seeing the images from each photo gallery being indexed on images.google.com. We are torn. What should we do to rank for these images?
On-Page Optimization | | tennisexpress0