Today’s BLOG sites are more complicated than ever!
Blog sites aren’t simple sites any more.
They’re supposed to be the simplest sites and a function WordPress was originally designed for…most content is static and most visitors aren’t triggering heavy php/database functions…
…but that’s rarely ever the case.
The most successful blog sites nowadays are content labyrinths full of text, images, videos, ads, pop-ups, social media buttons, comparison tables, and trackers everywhere. They’re practically miniature social networks using dozens of tools to engage all types of user conversions. It’s not enough just to have visitors reading.
We want visitors to:
- Read posts
- Share posts
- Share their email
- Leave a comment
- Click an affiliate link
- Watch a Youtube video
- Subscribe to browser notifications
- LIKE our Facebook page
All this user experience “magic” requires tons of plugins and fancy CSS/JS to make our blogs not only visually appealing but also fully-functioned.
And then we need backend (admin) tools to manage our sites and visitors:
- Traffic analytics
- Comments management
- Pop-up management
- Affiliate links, pretty links
- Ad banner management
- Fancy menus or home page designs
- Browser notifications for new posts
- Redirects and 404 management
- SEO and page indexing
- User search tracking
COMMON PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS with blog sites
- Too many pages to cache – site either doesn’t prebuild cache or can’t prebuild cache for all pages. Can be a major problem when the site is updated often and regularly.
- Slow pages – usually a combination of unnecessarily heavy themes or plugins (due to poor/efficient coding), pagebuilders, pop-ups.
- Many static assets – images, CSS/JS, icons.
- Dynamic content – social share counts, comparison data, new user comments, related posts.
- Many 3rd party assets – ads, tracking scripts, webfonts/font-icons, video embeds, social media boxes.
- Redirection – using slow PHP-plugins to manage posts URL’s that change over time.
- Massive traffic – blog sites can have unpredictable traffic.
SPEEDING UP load times for blog sites
- Configuring the right caching system – blog sites with 500 pages (or fewer) OR that don’t get updated daily can safely pre-cached. Blogs with thousands of pages, updated often, and with many visitors should use on-the-fly caching mechanism.
- Choosing proper plugins – smaller sites and/or have little budget should choose their plugins wisely. Larger/heavier sites should consider developing custom themes and plugins for maximum performance.
- Managing static content – browser caching and intelligent lazy load are common tactics here. Use a CDN if you have many static assets (images, CSS, JS) and many visitors from far away (over 1,000 KM away). Just be careful that you don’t affect user experience!
- Managing dynamic content – deploy short-term caching (object caching).
- Managing external assets – deferring assets, DNS-prefetching external sources, and even localizing or excluding external assets. The goal is not to adversely affect user experience.
How JVPS speeds up blog sites:
- Caching flexibility – we effectively cache your site no matter if it’s 20 posts or 20,000 posts! Need object caching for dynamic requests or tricky content? We allow it!
- Strong servers – strong CPU, lots of RAM, fast DRIVES. All the things you need to make websites fun. Enjoy not only faster frontend speeds but also a faster/snappier backend so you can get your work done!
- Fast storage – most hosts offer either tons of SLOW storage or limited amounts of FAST storage. We offer the perfect solution (medium amounts of FAST storage) providing fast storage for your entire site, static assets, and cached files.
- Speed consultation – we’ve been there and done that. Seen it all! Our team is happy to advise you on your current themes and plugins. What you should keep and what you should replace. Curious to know what our other clients are using?…simply ask them on our friendly Facebook group!
- High concurrency – our servers can easily handle your traffic whenever they come. 100 at a time? 1,000 at time? Even more??? NO PROBLEM! (By all means, go viral!)
- Htaccess – very convenient and much faster way of handling redirects than via a redirection plugin!