Today I want to share a tool I’ve just started using to decrease the time it takes for my page to load.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting that this factor is becoming ever more important in the world of online marketing. Google has recently said that page load time is becoming a major factor in how much credibility you have in the search engines.
OK, so now that I’ve driven the point home suitably (thanks Neil)…
I’ve just started using something called P3 to help me speed up my site.
What’s P3 you ask? (I have REALLY good hearing)
It’s a plugin that you add to your site which enables you to see exactly which plugins are causing your site to run slowly.
The thing is, we all know that WordPress is brilliant. However, when you start adding plugins to your site or blog, it can start to suck in terms of how quickly the pages load.
So P3 (or Plugin Performance Profiler to give it its full name), allows you to scan your site thoroughly and tells you exactly how much each plugin is affecting your page load speed.
Just before I show you my before and after results, bear in mind that the speed at which your site loads can mean more or less money for your business depending on how you do it.
In my experience working in E-commerce I would say that a 10% improvement in page speed will give you a 2-3% increase in conversion. Dont forget that a 1% increase in conversion will hit the bottom line of your business directly as we are not talking about increasing traffic here in parallel.
OK, results time.
As you know, I don’t recommend anything unless I’ve tested/used it first.
This was the state of my site according to the Plugin Performance Profiler before I started deactivating plugins:
Before
As you can see, the 30 plugins are adding 2.094 seconds to the time it takes for my site to load. It was requiring 117 queries to my database too (the more of those you need, the longer the site will take to load).
So, once I saw the result, I decided to start seeing which plugins I could remove.
I also kept the Jetpack plugin (the pink section in the above graph), but deactivated a lot of the features to just include the minimum for publicising the blog.
And the results?
After
As you can see, I’ve increased the speed of the site by cutting the load time of the plugins in half.
That means I’ve decreased page load time by a huge 13.9%!
Think about that for a second. Actually, re-read the quote from my friend Neil Asher. He said that a 10% increase can improve conversions by 2-3%. I did 13.9%! Kabooooom!
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