How Do You Optimize a Wordpress Blog?

22 replies
Want a step by step guide on the things one should do to optimize his selfhosted wordpress blog.
#blog #optimize #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author cassidywilliams
    2 Main things:

    1) Turn on permalinks (under settings)
    2) Install 'XML sitemaps' and 'All-in-one SEO' plugins

    These will do 95% of the work.

    The rest is mainly writing optimized titles and content.
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    • Profile picture of the author Thomas De
      I would recommend the following 4 steps 1. Turn your permalinks from standard to /%postname%/ 2. Install the plugin All-In-One-SEO 3. Install the Plugin Maxblogpress Ping Optimizer 4. Install the xml-Sitemap Plugin from Arne BBrachholt if you plan a site with more than 10 pages.
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      • Profile picture of the author Cataclysm1987
        I do the exact same thing with my permalinks!

        Also probably want to grab a copy of Platinum SEO and CBNet Ping Optimizer. Add a bunch of ping sites to this list and it will get you indexed a lot more quickly.
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        • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
          Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

          Also probably want to grab a copy of [...] CBNet Ping Optimizer.
          Yep. Unlike the other one, this doesn't require subscribing to activate!


          Originally Posted by Cataclysm1987 View Post

          Add a bunch of ping sites to this list and it will get you indexed a lot more quickly.
          DON'T!
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      • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
        Originally Posted by Thomas De View Post

        I would recommend the following 4 steps 1. Turn your permalinks from standard to /%postname%/
        With /%postname%/ - you run the risk of duplicating your URLs. You really need some kind of random number in the url so that urls are not duplicated. Wordpress will add a "-2" to the url if its a duplicate, but it still can get confusing.

        Lets say your looking for an article you posted about obama, and you posted 4 articles with the same title "president obama",,,,,.

        At the very least add the year to the title:
        /%year%/%postname%/
        /%postname%/%year%/
        /%postname-year%/
        /%year-postname%/

        That way if you have a blog that spans 3, 4, 5 or 6 years, you can see what year you posted the article. It makes finding stuff a lot easier.
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        • Profile picture of the author johnharvard
          Can you expand on using permalinks? Why is it better for SEO and also how does it affect existing backlinks? For example, I have an existing back link that points to "me.com/?p=123". Will
          it be able to find the post by its new name?
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          • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
            Originally Posted by johnharvard View Post

            Can you expand on using permalinks? Why is it better for SEO and also how does it affect existing backlinks? For example, I have an existing back link that points to "me.com/?p=123". Will
            it be able to find the post by its new name?
            Yes, if you rename a post, wordpress will be able to keep track of it. I have changed by permalink structure 3 or 4 times in the past 2 1/2 years. And the incoming links are redirected to the new url.

            Changing the permalink structure to something like /%year%/%postname%/ will result in me.com/2010/post-name-here

            Having the title of the article in the URL is a lot more search engine friendly then p=123. Go take a look at the way CNN does their urls. I went to CNN and clicked the first article I saw

            cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/29/russia.moscow.mayor/index.html

            Notice its the year-category-subcategory-month-day-article.title. Instead of p=123
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        • Profile picture of the author Thomas De
          Originally Posted by ~kev~ View Post

          With /%postname%/ - you run the risk of duplicating your URLs. You really need some kind of random number in the url so that urls are not duplicated. Wordpress will add a "-2" to the url if its a duplicate, but it still can get confusing.

          Lets say your looking for an article you posted about obama, and you posted 4 articles with the same title "president obama",,,,,.

          At the very least add the year to the title:
          /%year%/%postname%/
          /%postname%/%year%/
          /%postname-year%/
          /%year-postname%/

          That way if you have a blog that spans 3, 4, 5 or 6 years, you can see what year you posted the article. It makes finding stuff a lot easier.
          I would prefer the -2 at the end of the url, which is set by wordpress automatically instead of the year. If you rank after 3 years with your article your clickthrough rate from google could go down, as the people assume that the article is old and not up to date.
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  • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
    Resize all of your images to 640X480 and use thumbnails in post - when someone clicks the image, have it open in a new window.

    Stay away from large headers - anything over 30kb is bad, no more then 75kb for the entire homepage.

    Stay away from gifs and png image formats - both are larger then regular jpg

    Remove calls to slow external sites - like rss feeds, traffic tags, banners,,,,,,.

    Reduce the size of embedded youtube video videos. I use the wordpress excert in my category pages, and use a 320 pixel wide youtube video in the excert. While the full size video is embedded in the article.

    Do not use image heavy themes.

    Use a background color instead of a background image.

    Do not use slide shows on the home page.

    Use the title tag or alt tag for the article title.

    Use a simple permalink - some people put the category name, year, month, day, title,,, which creates a long url.

    All external links should open in a new window or tab.

    For image hosting, depending on what type of server your own, you might be better off going with an off site hosting service, like photobucket.
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    • Profile picture of the author lamberw
      1) Host video, audio and images on Amazon S3. The pages will load faster if these elements load faster.

      2) Use W3 Total Cache to have the configure your setup.

      3) Be weary of widgets and plugins that load slowly.

      4) Reduce image sizes to their lowest possible size. Use a site called 'Puny PNG' to reduce image sizes.

      5) Use the permalinks structure %post number%/%post name%

      6) Use Google XML Site Maps

      7) Use video XML Site Maps so your video can be indexed
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    • Originally Posted by ~kev~ View Post

      Resize all of your images to 640X480 and use thumbnails in post - when someone clicks the image, have it open in a new window.

      Stay away from large headers - anything over 30kb is bad, no more then 75kb for the entire homepage.

      Stay away from gifs and png image formats - both are larger then regular jpg

      Remove calls to slow external sites - like rss feeds, traffic tags, banners,,,,,,.

      Reduce the size of embedded youtube video videos. I use the wordpress excert in my category pages, and use a 320 pixel wide youtube video in the excert. While the full size video is embedded in the article.

      Do not use image heavy themes.

      Use a background color instead of a background image.

      Do not use slide shows on the home page.

      Use the title tag or alt tag for the article title.

      Use a simple permalink - some people put the category name, year, month, day, title,,, which creates a long url.

      All external links should open in a new window or tab.

      For image hosting, depending on what type of server your own, you might be better off going with an off site hosting service, like photobucket.
      Thank you for valuable advice. I agree that overloading a webpage with multimedia is counterproductive: [1] It takes longer to load and discourages the surfer from waiting to look at your site; [2] It lowers the readability of your page because it overloads the surfer's visual field; [3] It makes the webpage look "cheaper" and less respectable.
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    • Profile picture of the author UnseenRevolution
      Originally Posted by ~kev~ View Post

      All external links should open in a new window or tab.
      There is a simple way to do this. jQuery can test all the links and tell if they are external. If they are it can add the target="_blank" so that the link will open into a new window. It can also add a class to the link so that you can style the external links differently from your internal links. I like to add an external link icon to my external links.

      A tutorial and all the code can be found at the link in my sig

      Cheers!
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    • Originally Posted by ~kev~ View Post

      Use a background color instead of a background image.
      Question for you WP experts: This blog of mine has a background image. Is that why it loads weirdly?

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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    got that guys, more ideas is surely welcome..
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  • Profile picture of the author samjesop
    Definitely make sure you install a cache script. Wordpress can really be a database hog and caching mitigates that a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author DNChamp
    all good tips.....I like the ping ting is there a list of ping urls we can add AND do we add those in the site seo plug in somewhere?
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    • Profile picture of the author Thomas De
      Originally Posted by DNChamp View Post

      all good tips.....I like the ping ting is there a list of ping urls we can add AND do we add those in the site seo plug in somewhere?
      With the ping list provided in wordpress you have everything you need. Be carefull to add more, as some services ping others and if you have the pinged 3 or 4 times within seconds or even minutes you could be banned.
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  • Profile picture of the author messi1453
    thanks for good tips
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  • Profile picture of the author rowanman28
    I've heard in all in one seo settings you should change the first three to /%postname%/ only. I don't know if that's covered when you do the same in permalinks. I also have a plugin called custom permalinks, I think that does something good, I can't remember what.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Define "weirdly"...

    Although this might have something to do with it: File size 359.18KB
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    • When I load that page on a machine that doesn't already have it cached, I can see the individual page elements coming up as the browser renders the page, rather than a nice quick boom, it's loaded.

      I fully believe the background file is a monster -- it's the default pic that came with that theme. I've gotta get back with ElegantThemes and get a solution. (Their support is not the greatest...)

      Thanks,
      fLufF
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