A fast and responsive site can make a lot of difference to the user experience. Also with Google considering page speed as one of the metric in ranking pages, website optimization can no longer be ignored. Yeah, I hear you, you already know that, that’s why you are using the fastest loading WordPress theme SwiftPremium.
SwiftPremium by default gives you 80+ page speed score, with a few tweaks you can push it to 90+. Lets see what those tweaks are
1. Get a proper web hosting package from reputed sellers. When you have good hosting your pages are served fast. We recommend HostGator for shared hosting, and LiquidWeb for VPS / Dedicated servers.
2. Mercilessly remove all the unwanted plugins, use only plugins be reputed developers.
3. Remove ad and tracking scripts from cheap ad networks and analytic sites.
4. Add plugins Wp-minfy and Smush.it. wp minfy will compress your css, javascript codes, and Smush.it plugin will compress and optimize your images.
5. Install a caching plugin and configure it correctly, we recommend w3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.
Wp-minfy, Smush.it and any of the above two caching plugins is a must.
6. Setup a CDN ( Content Delivery Network ), CDN will catch-all your statics files like, images, css, javascripts so that the number http requests to your server are reduced and thus redcuing the load on server. You can try SpeedyMirror a free CDN offering 50GB free bandwidth till you are ready to paid CDN.
Finally add the following code at the end of .htaccess file in your blog root. This code will compress your pages and set the expiration time for static files to a large value, so that they are cached on your reader’s browser. If you have regular visitors to your blog, they will notice a great improvement in your blog speed.
Caution, make these changes only after you have tweaked the site deign to your liking.
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<code>### BEGIN .htaccess # Protect the htaccess file <Files .htaccess> Order Allow,Deny Deny from all </Files> # Protect wpconfig.php <Files wp-config.php> Order Allow,Deny Deny from all </Files> # Disable directory browsing Options All -Indexes # BEGIN COMPRESSION AND CACHING <IfModule mod_deflate.c> # Enable compression AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css text/javascript application/x-javascript text/html text/plain text/xml image/x-icon <IfModule mod_setenvif.c> BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html </IfModule> <IfModule mod_headers.c> # Make sure proxies deliver correct content Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary # Ensure proxies deliver compressed content correctly Header append Vary Accept-Encoding </IfModule> </IfModule> <IfModule mod_headers.c> # No ETags, No Pragma Header unset Pragma Header unset ETag # Default cache time to 1 year (31536000 sec) Header set Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public, must-revalidate" </IfModule> # No ETags FileETag none # CACHE SETTINGS (mod_expires) <IfModule mod_expires.c> # Turn on Expires ExpiresActive On # set default to "access plus 1 year" ExpiresDefault A31536000 # html - "modification plus 1 hour" ExpiresByType text/html M3600 # css and JavaScript - "modification plus 6 weeks" ExpiresByType text/css M3628800 ExpiresByType text/javascript M3628800 ExpiresByType application/x-javascript M3628800 </IfModule> # No cache for php-files <FilesMatch "\.(php)$"> <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive Off </IfModule> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header set Cache-Control "private, no-cache, no-store, proxy-revalidate, no-transform" </IfModule> </FilesMatch> # END CACHING # W3 Total Cache are here (automatically included by the plugin): # WordPress Default Rules are here (at the end of the file): ### END .htaccess</code> |
Above .htaccess rules are taken from Zemalf.com, visit their site for more details
- SwiftPremium beats Google in page speed score
If you want the optimization to be done by experts, you can hire us for 49$
* If you don’t get 90+ Google page speed score, your payment will be refunded.
I don”t have credit card, so I don’t have paypal acount , so i can’t buy premium version , what must be I do know
, oes this theme works well although free version, only some main features reduced? thank
I try to your tutorials, but when i combine W 3 Total cache with WP Minify my site doesn’t appears.,then i deactive wp minify and i get score 87 for page speed..
Please, how can I get three columns on my blog site if I use the free swift theme? I mean left sidebar on the left, post area at the centre and right sidebar on the right side of the site.
Sorry, its premium only.
I have used all the recommended plugins but have not set-up CDN. I did not add the .htaccess. My page score is 85. Please feel free to check my blog and leave comments on how to improve it. Thanks much for your great help!
Satish,
Did you ever checked your main site page performance at GT Metrix?
I just did it for you and here is the result:
http://gtmetrix.com/reports/swiftthemes.com/G22dZ7ZK
your demo site did better though:
http://gtmetrix.com/reports/demos.swiftthemes.com/O9LGU3EK
I did, i prefer to spend my time on something that’s directly useful to my customers.
Swift and Swiftler’s are my priority.
Thanks for this post. Bookmarked it for future reference.
I’ll try out Swift Premium today on one of my heavy traffic sites
Where do i add that .htaccess file in my wordpress ? Should i paste that whole .htaccess file as it is or i had to make some changes ? Should i use both cache plugins, total cache and super cache , as i am using super cache plugins, i think installing both might will effect on blog.
Only one caching plugin, we recommend w3tc.
You should append these rules to your htaccess file as it is.
Hey Harsh, you have to add tht .htaccess in ur website folder & tht code inside .htaccess file. But check the site is working or not after you add tht file.. coz not all .htaccess code are applicable to site. it may lead to close the site too.
A very nice theme for SEO, and I have check the load time and it is excellent.
My only concern is how easy, or hard, is it to add AdSense modules?
And one more question can the side bar be moved to the left with only posts and ads in the center and the left?
And how difficult will it be to place a banner in the header?
I checked out several of the sites using this theme and did not see any of these items.
Would I have to make major modifications to the coding to be able to do these things?
Thanks for your time. I know that these are multiple questions but I really like the fact that this loads fast. I also know that the more advertising that I add will slow down the loading time but I do want some in critical placement on the theme.
Thanks again
You can do them all easily, no templates edits required.
Thanks Satish bro. I am working for the customization of free version on localhost. Once I get my design I will make it live on
Edward – me too
Thanks Satish!
Changing to swift theme allows my website to load in 3 seconds! A big change from the 30 seconds it used to take when I was using a different theme.
Have tried adding the above code to .htaccess but this causes an internal error.
dailyTUT now using other themes
please check it now. ..
you should edit the theme showcases on your homepage
Great stuff but when I added the code to my .htaccess I got an internal error so I have to delete it again. Nevertheless, I think my site is so much quicker now.
Thanks Satish.
Hi Satish,
My site loads quite slow and I’m sure this is because javascripts load during the page load hence a visible slow loading page. Page speed and ySlow also shows me that some things needs to be optimised. I use statcounter as my tracking service (good?) and that also has an impact on the speed.
I’d like to use your theme for my site and hire you to optimise the WP installation to achieve a greater speed, how can I do that?
You can buy the theme here http://swiftthemes.com/plans-and-pricing/
and contact me through this form for optimization
http://swiftthemes.com/contact-me/
Can you do a site optimisation for the free version of the Swift theme? My budget is not that big to buy the Premium theme
yes.
I’ve decided to employ you to optimise my site to achieve a greater speed than the actual speed. I would like to ask a question about Swift Theme Free version: should I firstly customise the site layout to my likening and then I ask you for the optimisation or you can do this first thing and then I can change the settings? Which is the best way to achieve the 90+ speed?
Thank you.
If I dont use yore theme, the price is still 49$ for optimize my site?
Thanks
Yup, but I cannot gurantee 90+ score with other themes.
i have a problem that after the post,the previous and next button are on the wrong side..
on the right side it should be next post whereas on the left side it should be previous post..
but in the theme it is vice versa..how to fix this ??
and also it shows author bio is coming shortly,where to change this author’s bio ??
if i use other theme, can i hire you to optimize google page speed ?
yup, but i cannot guarantee you 90+ score.
what is the current version of Swiftpremium and when 1.0 will be released??
Current version 0.6, 1.0 will be out in the first week of august.
The last step: switch your DNS provider to CloudFlare. This adds another CDN-like service on top of whatever remains unoptimized on your site after the above tweaks, speeding everything up even more, plus some extra goodies such as blocking known bad IPs from accessing your site, so you don’t need to use another plugin to get these features. I did this on all the blogs I administer, using only the free CloudFlare service, and they managed to enter that green area in Google Webmaster Tools’ Site Performance page. Besides, W3 Total Cache recently added support for CloudFlare API, so both work quite nicely together. VERY worth the effort, specially given the price.
That’s funny, I just wanted to add the comment about using CloudFlare