WordPress Hosting & Performance
by Alex James Bishop
Performance is a loaded word!
Many facets to performance
Performance Cont..
- Many talks focus on just one facet of performance
- Too often with WordPress the conversation becomes about plugins
- PHP performance is only part of the issue
- In today's world, hosting is usually part of the conversation due to integrated services
How fast is your website?
Step 1: Measure
Establish a baseline
Pingdom
Web Page Test
GT Metrix
Google Page Speed
Pick a couple
Being consistent is key!
Optimizing your site
- Establish a baseline
- Use results to try and locate problem areas
- Make 1-2 changes to fix the problem
- Test again and compare..
- Repeat!
Sounds Easy right?
😅
Advice for getting started
Big / long items on the waterfall first!
If TTFB is high, then server / PHP is struggling
Time To First Byte - the time between when the browser requests the page and it receives the 1st byte of the response
Speeding up the Server
- Use a great host!
- Full page caching if you can
- An Object or DB cache can help (redis)
- You won't find the above on shared hosts
If TTFB is < 1s, your greatest wins will likely be on the frontend
Optimize your images!
Reduce unnecessary assets!
Reduces Asset Blocking
Inspecting Front-end performance
CDNs
Content Delivery Networks
CDNs move your content closer!
The CDN model
CDN's take some setting up
Totally worth it if you can!
Managed Hosts can do this for you
If you don't want to go managed..
If you're a bit more DIY...
Remember, test!
Work out what's 'good enough'
Get expert help if required!
Q & A
Thanks for listening!
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What's a CMS?
Content
Management
System
In the beginning..
Websites were all HTML, later CSS and Javascript were added..
You had to know HTML to publish content on the web
There was usually 1 HTML file for each website page
The CMS Way
- Use a dedicated interface to input our content
- Store the content somewhere, like a database
- Have a templating system where HTML pages have sections for content to go
- Combine the content we have created and the page template to make a page
Backend
Frontend
We ❤️ CMS!
- Allows anyone to make a website
- Make changes across the entire site easily
- Can often be extended for different content types or functionality
- New themes or templates can be added to give a fresh look and feel to existing content
WordPress as a platform
WordPress extensions
- WordPress plugins for functionality
- WordPress themes for look & feel
- Custom plugins and themes (your own code!)
Example: WooCommerce
Example: Elementor
Example: Ninja Forms
Refresh with new themes
Lots of themes out there..
But be careful..not all are what they seem
Advice for getting started
- Work out what you need, then look for it
- The more "general purpose" a theme is, the less optimised it is for your purpose
- Avoid commercial themes until you're sure you need them
- The best place to begin looking for themes and plugins are the wordpress.org repositories
- If you want things for free, be prepared to spend time
wordpress.org
dot org
- The home of the WordPress open source community
- Download WordPress
- Plugin Repository
- Theme Repository
- Codex & Documentation
- Links to lots of other things
There's also a wordpress.com
WordPress.com
- Get started really quickly
- No need to find hosting, set up website etc
- Very responsive support, including live chat and email
- Lots of features built in that you would have to install plugins for on .org
- Restricted in terms of customisability
- Pay per site for premium features
- Limited eCommerce, business functionality
WordPress.org
- More DIY / Less hand holding
- You need to find hosting when publishing your website
- No direct support - though freelancer, service, agency etc can provide thus
- Generally will need a few plugins to get required functionality
- Unlimited customisation potential
- No restrictions on custom themes or plugins
- No ongoing licensing fees (for WP core, plugins differ)
Meetups focus on WordPress.org
Supporting the Open Source project & Users
not the commercialised Saas version on WordPress.com
WordPress is
open source
WordPress powers 32% of the web!
*based on Alexa top 1 million site index
Large market share means..
- Lots of information online, like tutorials
- Lots of people building things for WordPress
- Lots of people can help you build things with Wordpress
- Opportunity & In demand skillsets for both admin and development
Getting Started
Clearly define your result
Go for minimal themes & plugins
When choosing plugins & themes
- 🥇 WordPress.org repo first
- 👀 Read reviews & look at the screenshots
- 👮🏼♀️ Don't install "cracked" or "nulled" versions
- ⚙️ Try to keep functionality to plugins
- 🎨 Try to keep look & feel things in the theme
- 🤷🏽♀️ Gutenberg has muddied the water here..
Some good resources
wpbeginner.com
wordpress.org/support
bobwp.com
eCommerce / monetisation focus
Search is your friend!
We learn by doing
No better time to start than now
Thanks
Wordpress Adelaide - Performance & Hosting
By WordPress Adelaide
