How To Optimize Your Wordpress Site Speed - 100k Subscribers #47

Summary

In this video, Steve Dotto shares his experience optimizing the DottoTech website for speed. After rebuilding the site, he discovered slow load times due to uncompressed images, inefficient plugins, and an overuse of certain tools. He details the steps he took to address these issues, including resizing images, using the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin, and reducing reliance on OptimizePress. By improving image optimization and minimizing unnecessary plugins, Steve managed to cut his site's load time in half, ultimately enhancing user experience. He also touches on ongoing maintenance and the importance of website performance.

Takeaways

• 😀 The importance of website speed: Steve discusses how website performance is critical for user experience and search engine ranking.
• 😀 Website redesign mistakes: Despite a beautiful design, Steve’s site was initially slow due to lack of attention to speed and optimization.
• 😀 Mobile and desktop speed matters: Google tools showed Steve's site performed poorly on both mobile and desktop, though it was an improvement from before.
• 😀 Image optimization: Large, uncompressed images were the primary cause of slow website performance. Compressing images in Photoshop before uploading was a key solution.
• 😀 Featured image compression: WordPress doesn’t compress featured images well, so Steve manually resized and optimized them to speed up his site.
• 😀 Plugins and their impact: Excessive plugins can slow down a website, so Steve carefully reviewed which plugins to keep and which to remove for better performance.
• 😀 EWWW Image Optimizer plugin: Steve used this plugin to automatically optimize images during upload and compress older images from the media library.
• 😀 OptimizePress and website performance: While OptimizePress was great for creating landing pages, it significantly slowed down the site, so Steve moved landing pages to a subdomain.
• 😀 Cache management: W3 Total Cache was used to improve site performance by caching content and reducing server load, making the website load faster.
• 😀 Patience and learning: Steve learned a lot through trial and error, emphasizing the importance of doing a deep dive into website optimization from the beginning to avoid future frustration.

Q & A

Why was Steve Dotto's website slow after he rebuilt it?

Steve Dotto’s website was slow after rebuilding it because he added too many features without considering their impact on speed. This led to a slow-loading site, which had poor performance on both desktop and mobile devices.

What did Steve Dotto use to test his website's performance?

Steve used a Google tool that assesses how well websites perform on mobile and desktop devices, providing scores for both and identifying areas that need improvement.

What were the key problems identified with Steve's website?

The primary issues were slow load times, with the homepage taking around 10-12 seconds to load, and large, unoptimized images contributing to poor performance.

How did Steve Dotto address the slow load times of his website?

Steve optimized his website’s images by compressing and resizing them. He also used a plugin called EWWW Image Optimizer to further automate the image compression process and improve load times.

What mistake did Steve Dotto make with his website's featured images?

Steve didn’t compress the featured images properly before uploading them to his WordPress site, resulting in some images being as large as half a megabyte, which contributed to slow load times.

How did Steve improve the image compression process on his website?

Steve used Photoshop to manually compress and resize images before uploading them. Additionally, he installed the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to automate the compression of images as they were uploaded to the site.

What impact did OptimizePress have on Steve's website speed?

OptimizePress, a tool Steve used to create landing pages and sales pages, was slowing down his site due to its heavy resource usage. To resolve this, he moved all OptimizePress pages to a subdomain, reducing the strain on the main site.

What solution did Steve find to maintain landing page functionality while improving site speed?

Steve created a subdomain (Members.DottoTech.com) to host all landing pages and other resources created with OptimizePress. This allowed him to retain the needed functionality without burdening the main website.

What role did the W3 Total Cache plugin play in Steve Dotto's website optimization?

The W3 Total Cache plugin helps speed up website loading by caching elements and reducing server load. Steve used it to preload website elements, improving performance by serving pages more quickly.

What was the final result of Steve Dotto's website optimization efforts?

After optimizing images, removing unnecessary plugins, and restructuring landing pages, Steve’s website load time improved significantly, dropping to around 5 seconds, which he considered acceptable for a website.