I have been working on my page’s speed once again. This time I have really succeeded, so I hope you appreciate my efforts. It has taken days and days (again!)- but in the end, like many things it was simple, and the ‘experts’ were no help at all – quite the reverse!
Here are Google’s Page Speed Insights for desktop speed for this morning 10-12-2019:
Loading in .7 of a second is great!
And here is Google’s mobile speed test result:
2.3 seconds is also great for mobiles but as you can see, there is still room for improvement! Nonetheless these speeds mean the page is taking about a quarter of the time that it did this time last year when I thought I had sped it up a lot!
I can make the file size of the images on the home screen smaller – but I can’t figure out how. Also, though gzip (a compression tool) is loaded it does not seem to be outputting (according to W3 Total cache). It should compress the text part by nearly 80% if I can get it working) so I should be able to squeeze these page speed seconds a little shorter still! I am also not sure whether Lazy Load Images is working for mobiles.
Reducing the size of the page (and the images) helped. W3 Total Cache is one of the important answers. (Seems much better than WP Rocket to me). Getting rid of the sidebar (mobile users will appreciate that!) and turning off Google Ads (half the load time!) also. The Jetpack plugin has been holding me back for years – it clearly slows your site down. It was also costing me A$455 per year!
Some of the (all free)plugins I am now using: W3 Total Cache (most important), Short Pixel Optimiser (vital), All In One SEO Pack, Updraft Plus (for backup), WP Statistics and Google Site Kit (both for traffic information), Akismet (for spam) and Classic editor (because I refuse to learn how to use WordPress’s new Gutenberg format). I may add back in a couple more such as Google Language Translator if they don’t slow the site down. I should also add extra security. PS: Added Wordfence.
I hope you enjoy the new ‘look’ of the site – and come back lots of times. I have removed the side bar which spoiled the appearance of the page when you turn your phone/tablet on its side (Sorry!). I have also tidied up all the ‘suggested page’ links at the bottom – as you can see. After I have finished a few necessary farm jobs I will be completing some (I hope interesting) new posts. For example, I have been working on backpacks – I have the beginnings of over 100 new posts. So, Check back later.
Cheers, Steve & Della.
PS: I am happy to hear from any ‘tech heads’ out there with advice!
Published Dec 10 2019
