Some self-hosted WordPress sites tend to run slow, especially when you receive tons of heavy traffic every day. This may be a result of the amount of large files your site needs to load or inefficient coding. But there’s nothing worst than a slow site, so here are some quick tips on how to speed up your self-hosted WordPress site. These tips mostly apply to self-hosted WordPress site because if you’re site is hosted on WordPress.com, you’re already being taken care of.

1. Staying up to date with releases

Staying up to date with the latest version of WordPress is critical. In every update, there are usually a lot of performance enhancements. The developers at WordPress don’t release updates just for fun, but because they’ve upgrades or made something about WordPress better.

Same situation with WordPress plugins, stay up to date with the latest versions. It’s as important, and for the same reasons. WordPress plugin developers release new versions because they’ve modified the code in some way to make the plugin better. So keep up with the releases!

2. Disable or delete unused plugins

This is probably one of the biggest issues that causes WordPress sites to slow down. Depending on the plugin, they can have tons of scripts and code. So if you’re not using a plugin disable it and maybe even delete it. Decide which plugins are necessary for your site to run and then do-away with the ones that aren’t needed. It’s as simple as that.

3. Clean up your code

Since your code is what runs your site behind the scenes, optimizing it can do wonders for your load time. Below are some easy ways you clean up your code to load faster.

• Decreasing WhitespaceWhitespace refers to the spaces used in your code. Some coders, like myself, like to use a lot of whitespace (indented tabs, line breaks, etc.) for better readability and organization. But, decreasing whitespace will speed up your site’s load time by shaving off some extra bytes off the total size.

  An example of using some whitespace:

  .test {
font-family: Georgia, Times, serif;
font-size: 12px;
color: #000000;
}

  An example of minimized whitespace:

  .test {font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12px; color: #000000;}

• Using external scriptsInstead of placing tons of code in your header.php file, use external scripts. This allows the browser to cache the script so it won’t have to read it for every other page.

  An example of using external scripts:

  <script type="text/javascript" src="example.js"></script>

• Using shorthand CSSUsing shorthand CSS is great for everyone. It’s great for you, your browser, and your site visitors. It allows for your CSS to be more concise, and it loads faster too!

  An example of using long ass regular CSS:

  .test {margin-top: 7px; margin-right: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 3px;}

  An example of using shorthand CSS:

  .test {margin: 7px 1px 5px 3px;}

4. Minimize PHP and database queries

And most important of all, cutting down on PHP and database queries. Each time a page on your site loads, if your browser has to execute any PHP queries, it adds to the load time. If you replace the PHP queries with static HTML, every time a page loads, your browser just reads the HTML.

An example of lots of queries & requests:

<title><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" />

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/mootools.js"></script>

An example of minimized queries & requests:

<title>WPCandy - The Best of WordPress</title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 2.3" />

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://wpcandy.com/wp-content/themes/wpcandy/files/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/wpcandy" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://wpcandy.com/wp-content/themes/wpcandy/files/mootools.js"></script>

Author:Michael Castila