Seo for Blogs – 6 Tips for High Performance
If you publish a blog on the web then you want to ensure it gets read, and so you will also be hoping that readers find it. I hope that you have optimized your blog for search engines and Google but you should also ensure you have it optimized for speed. Doing this ensures that – with Google Caffeine for example – your site will get ranked well, as its probably slower than a standard html site.
Implement these tips and your site will fly:
W3 Total Cache. If you have used wp super cache then you know all about caching pages on disk or memory so that visitor calls to your site don’t have to go to the database to retrieve the content. W3 Total Cache goes a step further, and adds gzip compression, minifies your css and js files and adds caching to the database. Its a classic one click install from the wordpress site, and will add at least 10% performance of your site. Make sure you uninstall wp super cache and any other caching or optimisation software you have.
Get Thesis – Ok a new a theme might seem daunting, but if you want your blog to be clean and seriously SEO friendly then this is one to get. It completely distinguishes your content from your design – so what? – well this ensures that evey wordpress upgrade or customisation you do is totally supported and doesn’t bring your blog down. Then you can customise the whole site for colours, styles and fancy widgerydoos to your hearts content in a point and click interface. No Coders needed.
Google Webmaster Tools – Set your blog up in the webmaster tools and go into the labs section and check two things; 1) Make sure that the Google bot reads your site clearly and reports back what you want it to. This will pickup on any redirects or badly formed content you may have. 2) Check the site performance. This is what Google will be using as part of its caffeine algorithm, although its not clear where you need to be to be fully optimised in their eyes – just try and get it as close to the dotted line as you can. If its under then go and buy yourself a beer!
Firefox and PageSpeed – Install PageSpeed as a plugin from firefox (you will probably have to install firebug first), but once up and running you will be able to judge which pages are performing and how your overall site is optimised. Google use the same algorithms so its a no brainer using this first. Once you are viewing your site, you can run it via the Tools – firebug menu.
Get a VPS – Most people (me included) use web hosting services and why not – they are very cheap. The going rate nowadays is around $10 or less per month. However if you want to reap the benefits of caching in memory you need more control. The problem is you are sharing the server with who knows what – and it could well be a spotty teenager providing info on the best hacks for Xbox – for which he’s getting millions of hits per day. The next upgrade is a virtual private server, and this a virtual server slot on shared hardware. Being a virtual server allows you to grow it according to demand so if you become an overnight celeb by accidently twittering about the demise of Tiger Woods you can recover quickly by extending the resources of the server to cope with the demand. I use Hostgator only because their support has been brilliant for me. I can go online any time of the day via chat and have an issue taken care of and believe me I’ve had issues. There are others to watch like VPS.net who look promising but I’m not sure they have got their act together yet.
CDN – Content Delivery Networks store your cacheable data on their network so that wherever your visitors are in the world they can retrieve your site into your browser as if it was in your next door neighbours garden. It massively speeds up delivery and when you get serious about your blog or website performance you will want to be doing this. Solutions available from Akamai and NetDNA , and maxcdn.com among others. (As I write maxcdn.com have a special of $10 and I’ve set this blog with them, so I would recommend you do to. It takes 5 minutes as long as you have W3 Total Cache – If you need help setting it up, let me know and I’ll do a HowTo.)
Learn more about Recruitment Technology. Stop by Paul Bannister’s site where you can find out about Slow Blog SEO and what it can do for you.
