Tips To Speed Up Your Blog

Research shows that more than 65% of the netizens don’t like a blog that takes forever to download. In today’s busy lifestyle, no one would like to waste their time to wait for your blog to download. As a rule of thumb, your blog should download within the next 12 seconds once it has been accessed. Otherwise, you will be missing a huge amount of traffic and you have just deprived your blog of repeat visit.

Like I’ve said before, traffic is the lifeblood of most blogs. Traffic enables bloggers to successfully monetize their blogs. Simply put, the higher the traffic your blog gets the higher the potential revenue is. It is therefore crucial that you make sure your blog downloads fast to avoid losing traffic and to get the most benefit out of it.

Tips For a Faster Downloading Blog

Here are some proven effective tips that will help you speed up your blog.

Optimize Images and Go Easy on Them

While it is true that images spice up your blog, it is also true that it slows its loading time. Here are a few things you can do to optimize the use of images without compromising the speed of your blog.

• Use image formats such as PNG, JPG and GIF. When using software such as Adobe Photoshop, always use the “Save for web” image quality.
• Alternatively, you can use an image optimizer. An image optimizer allows you to lessen the size of the image up to 50% or less. This means a faster downloading image. There are plenty of free online image optimizers you can use for this purpose. Here are some of my recommendations: Dynamic Drive, Image Reducer, Net Mechanic and Spin Wave.
• Make sure to use the ‘Height’ and ‘Width’ tags in images. Using the height and width tags on images allows browsers to figure out the dimensions of an image before it is downloaded. Without the ‘height’ and ‘width’ tags, the browser will have to figure out the height and width of the image which will slow the loading period.
• Lastly, host your images using image host sites like Flickr, Picture Trail, Image Shack and Photo Bucket. Doing this will greatly reduce the bandwidth used by your server. Since image hosting sites specialize on hosting images, they help your blog load faster because image upload sites have a better loading speed.

Avoid Using Tables. Use CSS Instead and Don’t Forget to Optimize your CSS.

If you are still using HTML codes to create tables and design your blog, you’re depriving it of a faster loading time. Tables normally slow down your blog. A better alternative to tables is to use CSS. Using CSS will dramatically speed up your blog’s load time up to 30% or more.

To further improve your blog’s speed, optimize your CSS by removing unnecessary code declarations and whitespaces or by shortening the CSS codes whenever possible. Fortunately, there are online websites that provide free CSS optimization for those who are less knowledgeable of CSS. Here are some websites that I recommend: CSS Optimizer, Clean CSS and Style Sheet Optimizer.

Go Easy on Scripts and Adverts

Bloggers, especially the new ones are obsessed with their blog’s design and monetization. Oftentimes, they’d overload their blog with fancy flashes and adverts that use javascripts. Least do they know that doing this compromises the downloading speed of their blog. The use of flash can also cause browsers to freeze annoying your visitors. That’s the least thing you want your visitor to feel about your blog.

The use of javascript is unavoidable especially if you’re monetizing your blog but you should make sure to use it in moderation. Like CSS, you can also optimize your Javascript to make it run faster on your blog. Free Javascript Optimizer is a website that offers javascript optimization.

Use Slash (/) on your Links

Another simple tip for a faster loading blog is to use slash (/) on your links.

Instead of using this link to link to TheWeblogZone: “http://theweblogzone.com” optimize the link by putting a slash at the end of the URL. (i.e. http://theweblogzone.com/)

Limit the Number of Post on your Home Page

Your home page is usually the first landing page of your visitors. For Blogs, minimizing the number of posts shown will somehow speed up your blog. You can do this through your dashboards. For TheWeblogZone, I decided to show 4 of my most current posts.

That’s all for now. Hope these tips help you improve the loading time of your blog.

If you would like to add something on the list, you’re more than welcome to leave it through the comment.

Thank you for your time!

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