[Support request] Maximising Page Speed

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Home Forums Support Maximising Page Speed

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 41 total)
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  • #957301
    Ender

    For your questions I recommend this page:

    https://kinsta.com/learn/speed-up-wordpress/

    Good Contact Form Plugins (Works without JavaScript):

    https://de.wordpress.org/plugins/simple-basic-contact-form/
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/lightweight-contact-form/

    Alternative for Autooptimize is this Plugin: Fast Velocity Minify Plugin

    See Video here:

    In combination with https://wordpress.org/plugins/async-javascript/ u will have good performance.

    #957603
    Tom
    Lead Developer
    Lead Developer

    Hosting is really the most important aspect of speed in my opinion. A good host with good in-built caching can make a huge difference.

    21 images are also quite a few. Are they all optimized? Maybe a lazy loading script will help?

    #957759
    Alan

    Yeah I agree. 21 images is a lot. Might have to rethink the page content. Decide whats there for a reason and whats filler.
    I’ve contacted my host and Im waiting on a reply. I may have to change hosts. It is shared hosting and its a low end plan.

    #957790
    Alan

    I was considering adding a couple of full width coloured rows by adding sections ( not image rows). Would that add anything to the page size?

    #957874
    Tom
    Lead Developer
    Lead Developer

    Not much at all. I think lazy loading might be a good option for you – it’s definitely worth a shot πŸ™‚

    #957915
    Alan

    Thanks Tom.

    I will look into the lazy loading of the image files πŸ™‚

    Im just minimizing some images. What is the recommended size for the full width header background like I have on my page. Mine is 2136 by 400px. Is that too big?

    #958082
    Alan

    I’ve revamped the home page today. I removed 2 sections and compressed every image. I added two full width colored “sections” and that added 0.5kb. The size of the images on my home page is down from 208.7kb to 112.0kb.

    I heard back from my host. They suggested that I add a plugin called WP Litespeed Cache. I havent tried it yet. Im not sure if it will interact well with Autoptimize.

    They also sent me a link to an article stating the TTFB (Time to first byte) is misreported and meaningless. I have to admit I dont understand a lot of it.

    https://blog.cloudflare.com/ttfb-time-to-first-byte-considered-meaningles/

    He said that TTFB was strongly related to website code rather than server performance. This may all be true but I dont have a lot of code on my page and Ive got 100% faith in the Generate Press theme. It also makes me wonder how other pages can consistently report such low TTFB like 58.7ms when mine is consistently high and can vary by up to 2 seconds.

    #958135
    Alan

    Should I have the 3 boxes ticked inside Customizing – General for icon type – font? Will that improve page speed?

    1. Combine CSS
    Reduce the number of CSS file requests and use a lite version of our grid system.

    2. Cache dynamic CSS
    Cache CSS generated by your options to boost performance.

    3. Smooth scroll
    Initiate smooth scroll on anchor links using the smooth-scroll class.

    #958139
    Maarten

    Ok, Alan? Ready for some real benefit for your website?

    I am going to help Tom and the rest with what I know and of course it still is my personal opinion so please understand that but to have you come out of the so called ‘get best performance loop’ I like to give you some of my help.

    But be ready as I will be very direct in these things I advice…

    First off all, I am going to quote a part about what your hosting provider is telling you and below that give my opinion:

    They also sent me a link to an article stating the TTFB (Time to first byte) is misreported and meaningless. I have to admit I dont understand a lot of it.

    My advice is this:

    They have NO idea what they talk about !!

    TTFB IS very important no matter what anyone is going to say to you.

    If this is what your host is telling you and it were me? I would advice you today to stop paying for them and leave them as soon as you can. They have NO idea what the ….. they talk about. Point blank.

    Next ->

      The things you have done correct:

    1) Buying GeneratePress was the best decision you could make for your website. We do not need to explain why as Tom and his developers are best in this business. That is easy to understand and nothing you have to think about anymore in the future.

    So again, Your theme is TOP you have this community that is also TOP so that you can strike of your to-do list for good.

    2) You need to make sure your bare bone setup is as fast as possible first.

    Your images need compression and be as close to correct used size in WP layout as possible.

    I know this can sometimes be hard to figure out as sometimes I also have that my images are not readable when there is soms text in it. Some people use bigger images but still scale them down. Just look at Kinsta’s blog.

    But maybe Tom knows a better way to check what the perfect blog image size is. Maybe have a look in your code next to were the image is located and then check what WordPress is adding for Height and Width and maybe use that to change the real size of your images before you do a Upload to WP.

    His images are good readable and he does use GP of course. (About Kinsta)

    When your images are as small and optimized as possible we need some other things first!

    1) Have as little plugins as possible and do not use any caching or any plugin that is modifying your website code. So no minimize HTML CSS and JS.

    2) Make sure you only activate what you need in GP Premium. I know Tom does a perfect job in optimizing his code and combining it but still it would be good to turn off features you do not really need for your website project just to have the CSS loaded be as small as possible.

    Now comes something I hope you understand and is going to help you:

    You want to rank right?

    You want a fast website because you have read online that it is good for your Google position and more important for your users that go and visit your website.

    But did you know that you

      ONLY

    need to be faster then your biggest competitor?

    How to find out?

    1) Go to Google
    2) Type in your most important Seed Keyword you need to rank for
    3) Open the first 3 websites of your competitors, meaning they rank on top in Google for your keyword
    4) Put these sites one by ones in a real testing tool that is developed by Google

    https://web.dev/

    That one is developed by Google’s Tech Team and should give you better numbers to work with.

    Or…

    https://www.webpagetest.org/

    That is the one ALL professionals use and NOT any other tools.

    How to use them and what you need to look out for:

    1) We do not focus on grades, we are not in school anymore and these grades are for amateurs
    2) We focus on TTFB and First Paint and something like DOM Ready Or Loaded

    Now, put https://www.webpagetest.org/ on 3G mobile and your testing location, meaning your country you want to rank in.

    Wait for it to complete and see the results I told you about.

    1) What numbers do your competitors have?
    2) Did you see a fast TTFB? and Paint?

    The best is having TTFB be 0.5 Seconds. That is really fast and that of course also depends on what hosting they are using and how optimized the website/page is. (Specially for Mobile)

    Note down these numbers.

    You are now becoming a real world speed-analyst that does not only want a top speed website but also is going to get better rankings.

    Good work!

    Now you have those numbers. Do the same for your website and compare.

    1) Is your website loading taking longer? If so it is really seconds or milliseconds?

    Your goal is to come as close as possible to your main competitor for the keyword you did a search for in Google.
    That is only the thing you need to think about the rest is not important for now.

    If your TTFB is something like 0.5 milliseconds and say your competitor is 1.2 seconds you can be sure to know that YOU are faster! Great job!

    First Paint should also be no more than 3 seconds. The less the better.

    You see how easy that is?

    If you now have your site as fast as possible even without any plugins that cache or optimize HTML, now and only NOW is your time to turn these plugins on.

    Now you should be even faster than your competition!

    If you want free go for what they advice here. If you want to pay and like to know what I advice as being ‘best’ go for WP Rocket and do not look any further.

    Good luck πŸ™‚

    #958173
    Alan

    Hi Maarten

    Wow I really the information in your reply and the time taken to write it! Thank you.

    I will have a look at the test sites that you mentioned. I’ve compressed all of my images today although a couple of them may have to be resized like you said.

    I installed litespeed cache like they suggested and it has dramatically improved the page speed but I will disable it tomorrow and follow your suggestions and see what I come up with.

    Was there a reason why you suggested not to combine and minify css, Js and HTML?

    As of now I have the following results with the litespeed cache enabled and autoptimize disabled.

    Load time: 339ms
    Page size 232.8kb
    17 requests
    waiting time 3.6ms (TTFB)

    This is with litespeed cache activated and js, css and HTML optimised.

    Thanks very much,

    Alan

    #958181
    Maarten

    Was there a reason why you suggested not to combine and minify css, is and HTML?

    Yes, the reason is that you first want to test how fast your site will load without any help from any plugins. This, to make sure you pay for the best hosting.

    Your speed data is not important until you know the numbers of your competitors : )

    #958190
    Alan

    Ok that makes perfect sense. I will have a look at that tomorrow.

    Incidentally, are you able to tell me what I should be looking for when searching for a host. I was looking around online today but I really don’t know what to look for.

    From what I can see, a vps is too expensive, so I’m probably looking at decent shared hosting if it exists.

    They quote stats like

    100%, 200%,300%,400% CPU Speed
    6 m/s I/O speed

    I know my plan is very basic. It’s 100%CPU speed but no idea what else. Support is really slow so you get the picture πŸ™‚

    #958197
    Maarten

    The ‘best’ hosting has to do with your budget and the goal of your website.

    Just know 1 thing and that is any host and I mean ANY that tell’s you that TTFB is nonsens is directly disqualified!

    So just email some hosts you like and ask them what they think about TTFB… could be a nice test to do πŸ™‚

    Good luck!

    #958522
    Tom
    Lead Developer
    Lead Developer

    Wow, amazing post Maarten! Thank you so much πŸ™‚

    #958874
    Alan

    Hi Maarten.

    Thanks again for the time that you put into your reply. The information in your email has been very helpful πŸ™‚ I’ve had a look at both test sites and there is a lot of information there thats going to help me improve my sites performance. They are both much better than what I have been looking at!

    I first went to web.dev but I couldnt work out what was FTTB, First paint or Dom Ready

    I’m just running some tests on webpagetest. They use different terms on here so I may have them wrong. I couldn’t find Dom ready.

    The following are the top 3 in my category.

    1.

    First Byte (TTFB) 1.093 sec
    Start Render (First Paint) 3.600 sec
    Load time 7.516 sec

    2.

    First Byte (TTFB) 5.552 sec
    Start Render (First Paint) 10.70 sec
    Load time 14.585 sec

    3.

    First Byte (TTFB) 2.591 sec
    Start Render (First Paint) 3.3 sec
    Load time 8.047 sec

    These tests are for my website with both the Litespeed Cache and Autoptimize plugins deactivated. I cleared the cache before they were deactivated. I then ran a quick test on Pingdom to see if those results were similar to the results that I was getting prior to adding the plugins and they were so this test should be correct.

    First Byte (TTFB) 0.471 sec
    Start Render (First Paint) 0.800 sec
    Load time 1.205 sec

    This page is obviously way more in depth than what I was seeing at Pingdom and the results without any plugins are a bit different to what I got at pingdom. My website also seems to be faster than the top 3.

    My current unoptimised Pingdom results are:

    Waiting Time (TTFB) 0.743 sec
    Load time 1.14 sec

    So either my host has done something since my email yesterday or the optimising of the home page images has made an improvement. I trimmed 96.7kb from the images.

    Web.dev has also given me a few things to look at.

    1. My SEO only gets a score of 85/100 so some improvement is needed there. Apparantly my robots.txt is not valid. No idea what that is.
    2. My performance score 76/100. It tells me that I need to eliminate render blocking resources (The plugin will fix that when I activate it). It suggests that I reduce my TTFB times. It suggests that I serve images in next gen formats.

    Anyway thanks again,

    Thats been very insightful πŸ™‚

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 41 total)
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