When it comes to blogging, it’s no secret that I’m a self-hosted WordPress snob. In my 10+ years as a blogger, I’ve tried many different platforms– from the early days of Xanga and Livejournal to today’s options– Tumblr, Blogger, Squarespace, et al. Nothing beats the customization capabilities, SEO-friendliness, and constant innovation that WordPress offers. For those fellow WordPress-users, or the rest who need further convincing before making the switch, I’m starting this new blog series called WordPress Wednesday to share tips, tricks, and troubleshooting.
One of the major benefits of using the WordPress platform for your blog is its repository filled with thousands upon thousands of useful plugins. It’s easy to get carried away installing plugins meant to help your site, but actually end up slowing it down. Page load speed is incredibly important for SEO these days. Google wants sites to load in less than 2 seconds. It’s not always possible, especially for fashion bloggers who have lots of high-quality images on their homepage.
If your site is loading slowly, chances are you’ve got some unneccessary plugins installed that are partially to blame. The free plugin P3 Profiler will scan your website to find out which plugins are causing a slow performance and narrow down the impact that plugins are having on your site’s overall load time.
After finding out which plugins are slowing down your website, you can choose to replace them or remove them entirely, if they are not necessary.
Instructions
- Download the plugin
- Log into your WordPress admin
- Click Plugins
- Click Add New
- Click Upload Plugin
- Select Plugin Zip File and Click Install Now
- Activate the Plugin
- Click on Plugins
- Find P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) and click Scan Now
- Click “Start Scan” to run a performance scan of your website
Feel free to leave a comment or email me if you have trouble with any of the steps! If there are any specific questions you have about WordPress or things you’d like me to address in future posts, let me know below…