How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog By Getting Rid Of Bloat
- Image by fraunix via Flickr
Traffic is a lifeblood of any website or blog and we all do what we can to get as many of visitors as we can. Today I want to expand on idea of optimizing your online business by re-evaluating it and talk about…
How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog By Getting Rid Of Bloat!
Page load speed is extremely important for your blog not only because it allows your blog to be indexed faster by search engines but also because it helps you retain visitors.
People arrive to your blog pages from multiple sources and often searching for the solutions to their problems. Needless to say that if your page takes its sweet time to load – you might loose the person whose attention span is about as long as a toddler.
Present Your Content as fast as possible – reduce bounce rate and turn visitors into readers! And here are few tips that should help you….
I have previously wrote about blog optimization strategies I use and you can read about them in my posts:
- WordPress Guide: Howto Force Your Blog Load Fast
- 2 Things I Hate About WordPress And How To Turn Them Into Your Advantage
…I do now use WP-Super-Cache plugin on all my blogs, which is a change to what I describe in the first guide provided. Mainly because plugin has become a lot more compatible with others and also much improved. I recommend you do same.
Install WP-Super-Cache To Speed Page Load
As I mentioned above plugin now performs like a champ and as you traffic continue to grow – it can become a life saver for you, especially if you are on shared hosting.
If you don’t have the plugin yet – simply go to your Blog Admin interface and navigate to Plugins ->Add New.
Do a search for Term: WP Super Cache and once you find it – click to install.
Activate and configure plugin. Default settings should work for most of the blogs but please visit the plugin settings page and double check everything.
Get Rid Of Deactivated Plugins
As we use our blogs, we continue to add new plugins looking to add functionality and gain an edge over competition. Often those plugins simply become deactivated and left on your blog as unneeded.
But did you know that WordPress takes a look an evaluates EACH plugin, active or not, when pages are loaded?
As long as plugin files are present within wp-content/plugins directory it will be evaluated by the blog core to see if its functions need to be processed. This Adds Time to Each Page Load!
It might be just a few microseconds but when you have a whole pile of plugins that are no longer used and yet present – this can drastically impact page load speed!
You see that option I highlighted above? Use it for ALL plugins that have no use on your blog! You might be amazed on how responsive your blog becomes if you have a few of them!
Evaluate Functionality Provided By Plugins – Get Rid Of Duplicates
This one is unfortunately very common problem and I have seen it time and time again. Few factors contribute to it:
- Our desire to add extra functionality or enhance existing
- Developers creating plugins that become multi-functional
- Lack of knowledge…
And what I’m talking about here is when a blog has two or sometimes even more plugins doing exactly same thing! Since I never tested it and have no plans to do so – I can’t say if having All-In-One-SEO and HeadSpace 2 plugins at same has any impact on your Search Engine position or not but having two plugins performing essentially same function on your blog is definitely impacting your performance.
But it becomes even worse when I see even more plugins added to ADD to whatever the 2 above are already doing. And the problem I mention above is not limited to SEO functionality only, as I have seen it time and time again on great many blogs.
While sometimes you simply can’t overcome the problem because plugin you MUST have adds some functionality you didn’t ask for, due to developer trying to create a “swiss army knife” style plugin that does it all, you can carefully evaluate what you have.
What I’m about to describe will take a bit of time but in return you might be rewarded with leaner, faster loading blog!
- Login into your blog admin and navigate to Plugins section
- Write down each plugin you have installed and functionality it provides. You might have to visit developer site to get full details.
- Cross reference all the functionality you have as result from above and try to identify ANY plugins that can be removed. If more than one plugin provides same functionality – carefully research if one you are planning to keep does a job that will be sufficient for your needs.
- Deactivate and Delete all plugins you have identified as unneeded.
- Enjoy faster blog.
Steps above might not apply to you if you are not one of the people who constantly tests new functionality but still something worth doing.
Please be sure to also optimise your database as described in my guide 2 Things I Hate About WordPress And How To Turn Them Into Your Advantage.
Start 2010 with a Faster Blog!
Related blog traffic articles
- Bouncing Higher than 80%? Heres 7 Ways To Reduce Your Blog’s Bounce Rate (bradblogging.com)
- Should Google Rank Sites Based on Speed? (mashable.com)
- What Is The Best Traffic Source For My Blog? (wealthyways4you.com)
- How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog (howtospoter.com)
- A great big free traffic secret revealed… (fridaytrafficreport.com)
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35 Responses to “How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog By Getting Rid Of Bloat”
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Another great post, Alex – especially like the tip about removing dead plugins… The more one tweaks and test the plugins, the greater number of them that are replaced or deactivated, and who knew they would still slow down the load time!
BTW, have noticed your blog loading a lot faster lately – congrats!
Doug Champigny´s last blog ..4 Free Internet Marketing E-Books From Lee McIntyre
Thanks Doug.
Yeah the least obvious things sometimes are the biggest offenders and unless one takes time to investigate them – it can become an issue.
Thanks for the tips on the removal of old plugins, I never realized that mattered. I’ll be removing a bunch of those now from several blogs.
Matt Ellsworth´s last blog ..Facebook Marketing And Your Business Posted By: Claire
Matt,
I learned that through experience
I used to have tons of plugins on this blog.
Oh this is DEFINITELY a tremendously valuable page – will be sharing this with my network! And cleaning up me plugin directory to boot. Thanks for the tips!
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s last blog ..How kids REALLY have total recall – Today’s Humor of the Day
Thanks Barbara!
Thank you for answering the question that no one else even knew what I was talking about.
Up to now I have flat out refused the super cache plugin because it was long considered instant death to a blog, lol.
You’re saying now that it has been updated to the point of not being a threat, yes?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blogging Halted Here – Don’t Despair, This Is A Good Thing!
Dennis,
I used to take exactly same approach and stay away from plugin and in fact wrote about it before. Since then plugin is installed on every blog I have and no issues. It has greatly improved since early versions.
Excellent to know, thanks Alex.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blogging Halted Here – Don’t Despair, This Is A Good Thing!
Great information. I’m going to go download that WP Super Cache now and add it to all my auto blogs.
Michelle Green´s last blog ..A Stranger Is Promoting My Website! Should I Be Concerned?
Yes, it works well now in my experience as well
This is a great post. I love the functionality and flexibility of WP. My two biggest complaints would be security risks (when I don’t upgrade) and page load speed.
Especially since Google is considering page load speed as a ranking factor.
But you have a great tip on removing deactivated Plugins – which I’m going to do right now.
Thanks for the tip.
Thanks to give information about what should done with wordpress blog but can any one let me know what should be done to index the blogspot blog and how to bring traffic for that very blogspot blog. I own two blog but not getting the expected traffic for my blog.
Hi Alex,
Some sites are really loading forever and if I do visit them again I do so very reluctantly.
I also read that search engines don’t like sites that load slowly.
Your post is really helpful. I’ve recently got rid of some deactivated plug ins but after reading your post will do a complete clean up of the rest.
I’m a bit weary of using any plug in that has not demonstrated that it’s completely harmless.
Recently I found that the Vote It plug in created 29,000 rows of spam on my server. Needless to say it had to go.
I’ll visit your blog again and read more of your posts.
Vance
Vance Sova´s last blog ..Blogging SEO Strategy, Help Fellow Blogger Increase Blog Traffic
Thanks Vance and yes, SE do pay attention to loading speed.
Oh my, if it’s indeed true that wordpress checks all plugins, both active and inactive, then I may have to delete a lot of plugins sitting at my dashboard. I got lots of inactive plugins there which I kept there because I thought I might use them someday. I thought I was just saving them there and will never affect page load speeds.
Well, thanks for this tip. I guess I will have to delete them now. Anyway, I could always look for them when I do need them someday.
James Moralde´s last blog ..Help Save MySQL
James,
It is better to learn late than never
Test it yourself
All of a sudden, Page Speed is now front and center – because Google has indicated that this will be a factor in their ranking algorithms. I always am looking for ways to load my page as quick as possible because if the end user benefits from it – it is worth it.
Russ,
Actually if you look at my previous posts – page load speed has always been one of the topics I wrote about on this blog, going back at least couple years ago…
Hi Alex,
I am glad to hear that wp-super-cache plugin is working now. I use to use it but had all kind of trouble. But, if you say it works now I will give it another try.
Also remember you saying before that deactivated plugins should be removed, but I get lazy and forget to check all my blogs. I guess the best way for me is to delete it when I deactive it if I am pretty sure I am not going to use it. I can always reinstall it.
Thanks for the great info.
Herschel Lawhorn´s last blog ..Blogomator, Here is your newsletter!
Another tip on blog bloat is image size. I’ve seen quite a few blogs with outrageous image sizes. 300KB for a post image. Photoshop has a great feature ‘Save For Web’ which drops it down to normal reasonable sizes.
Another one is plugins that make my browser query other sites. I can’t count how many times I’m sitting waiting for a blog to load and it’s not because the actual blog host is slow, it’s some plugin they have. I couldn’t get to a blog today, any post, because it kept stopping at contacting tweetmeme.
Kevin McKillop´s last blog ..Link Building With Comment Luv
Alex – I always love your posts, I wish I could read faster, because I have a lot of catching up to do. When it comes to WordPress, I’ve found you to be the master!
Thank you!
P.S. Anyone who’s looking to stay abreast of all the stuff about WordPress, Alex IS your guy! If you start with him, you’ll never look for anyone else!
JoyfullyJanet´s last blog ..how to calculate profit
I was unaware of this problem with deactivated plugins. This does makes sense. Do you know if the same is true with deactivated themes?
Josh´s last blog ..Best WordPress Real Estate Themes
Hi Alex
I’ve been looking at various articles on “How to speed up wordpress” ever since I checked out my site load time in Google Webmaster tools.
Google tools now has a section for page load time, which it compares with average times. All my html sites are super fast but my one wordpress site, is super slow.
A great disappointment for a platform that is praised by so many.
I have been thinking about using WP super cache and probably will but I’ve been told that it will not make any difference to the page load times recorded by Google.
Not to worry.
Keith Davis´s last blog ..The eyes have it!
Great post. I have been working on my page load time, and have noticed a little difference.
I agree that the faster and easier you give your readers your content the better your blog will do.
John Paul Aguiar´s last blog ..Happy Holidays and My Personal Thank You
Great post! And highly topical, as Google has recently been making some noise about using page loading speed in its ranking calculation.
I’d also like to add that using a solid WordPress theme can drastically change load times. I used an outdated (or poorly coded) theme for a while on my blog, and couldn’t figure out why my page was loading so slowly. I later switched to thesis, and my page loaded in a flash.
at the end of the day we all wor very hard for are traffic i think its all about my traffic busines review to get some decent traffic for your busines
I’ve lowered my load times dramatically by using W3 Cache and by limiting mysql connections as much as possible. Also, I don’t like using dynamic sidebars…
I didn’t know deactivated plugins slowed WP down.. now I do
, thx
dave´s last blog ..Motorola DROID (Verizon Wireless)
I noticed my bounce rate declined as I managed to fix the loading time of my site. Definitely helps with conversions.
-Kai
Kai´s last blog ..SEO Tutorial #2
Good tips. I’ve actually been working on getting my load time faster. Didn’t know about deleting non-active plug-ins. Another thing that drastically increase my page load is getting rid of the RT/Tweetmeme plugin. This plugin calls from external sources and loads with your page, thus slowing it down a lot.
I used to use the wp super cache plugin back when I was active on digg. That plug-in can help you weather the traffic storm if your lucky enough to hit front page.
Zack´s last blog ..Social Media from a Sales Perspective
Zack,
Yes, that button is a hog but it has its benefits and sometimes we have to evaluate benefits sv issues
Image compression has got to be one of the biggest factors. Smush.it is one of the best tools to use, as it strips images of all meta data and retains image quality.
Hm. I used to be so scared of plug-ins, and then I went completely crazy the other way and got plug-in install-happy.
I get how deactivated plug-ins can cause lag, but my theory is that it’s the ones that rely on external information/sources -whether activated or deactivated– that cause the worst lags? (That’s just my theory, I’m still in discovery about the whole wordpress thing, so I’m just checking with someone who knows better. )
Thoughts?
Judah´s last blog ..Still haven’t gotten the hang of this SEO thing, I guess.
You are correct, the more external data pulled by plugin or your blog – the more it will cause delay.
Problem with deactivated plugins is that they are still used by core PHP to evaluate if they should be loaded or not. It could be minuscule delay but when you add it up – it can mean a difference between a reader or a visitor who didn’t have time to wait and clicked away