Improving my site PageSpeed

[Rigo]

Hello folks,
Been struggling at improving my website page speed.
When I run PageSpeed Insight I get the following:

Although I've optimised and replaced the images detected and flagged as too large, the same Although I've optimised and reduced the size of the images, they still seem to be a concern, a little lost what's the next step for these.
The other points of concern, would be great to get some pointers as well .
Rigo

 

[Diggs]

Are you using a compressible image type (.jpg) and have the software that can compress and maintain good quality. 40:1 compression yields good size vs. clarity in jpgs. Javascript appears to be an issue also.

 

[Joep]

Yes, I'm trying to do the same, extremely frustrating topic unless you're willing to a ton of studying. I was always under the impression my website was 'snappy' enough but Google disagrees.

As compressing the images was one of the easiest things to do, I further compressed those too with same disappointing result as you. I may even undo it as some of the images look like crap now.

Much of the .css and whatnot comes with the theme. I use a theme because creating one myself is not at all my expertise nor do I want to spend time on it. All tips to weed out .css, javascript etc. are therefor beyond me.

Prevent 'render blocking resources', heck I don't even know what they are.

So spent a day on caching, crunchimg images, some .htaccess tweaks and for the rest I'll accept things the way they are. Result is a few less complaints of the various website speed testing tools and less tips because I addressed some of the issues, but not a leap in increased speed.

I also don't know what to make of all those statistics: I read stuff like, 1 second delay > x % increase in bounces. Taking things from my own perspective, if I really am interested in the info a website seems to offer, I accept a somewhat slower response. So, people who think my site has anything useful to offer will just use it. And the people with zero interest and/or patience I can do without probably.

One last thing: Google tools are often freaking slow themselves. Instead of preaching about website speeds, fix your own crap.

 

[ChrisTech]

You can also use a caching plugin if you are using Wordpress - I use this one https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

It helps feed the browser request more quickly.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sky-Knight]

If you want a fast site, abandon Wordpress.

At very least for your public presentation. You need to export most of your site as static, so it's just HTML/CSS, not only can you host that junk anywhere for pennies, but it responds instantly.

Static sites, once the way of all the Internet, now becoming the way again. I'm rebuilding my site on with Hugo, and it's stupid how much more performance centric it is. But, it's not as "easy" either.

Oh, and load Google's tools LAST, and asymmetrically from google directly and you won't have any more performance problems with that either.

 

[mraikes]

...snipped...

I also don't know what to make of all those statistics: I read stuff like, 1 second delay > x % increase in bounces. Taking things from my own perspective, if I really am interested in the info a website seems to offer, I accept a somewhat slower response. So, people who think my site has anything useful to offer will just use it. And the people with zero interest and/or patience I can do without probably. ...snipped...

This^^ It's one thing for random surfers looking for cat pictures to bounce if not entertained instantly, it's quite another for a potential client with an actual need in search of a solution. I've never given a moment's thought to trying to get my webpage to load a couple seconds faster.

 

[Joep]

Yes, I am using a caching plugin. Basically it's what such a plugin does, it generates static pages. I have been doing my static websites for ages, I like doing them in Wordpress.

You can also use a caching plugin if you are using Wordpress - I use this one https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

It helps feed the browser request more quickly.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, I am not using this exact same one, but have a caching plugin running.

 

[Joep]

If you want a fast site, abandon Wordpress.

Static sites, once the way of all the Internet, now becoming the way again. I'm rebuilding my site on with Hugo, and it's stupid how much more performance centric it is. But, it's not as "easy" either.

It's basically what the cache plugin does, keep static pages and serve those.

 

[glennd]

I didn't see anywhere that you're actually using Wordpress. As a point of interest, if you were to open a Private Windows and load your web page, how long would it take to get it on the screen?

 

[Sky-Knight]

It's basically what the cache plugin does, keep static pages and serve those.

No, it isn't. And if you used an actual static export of your page against the Google tools you'd see that.

 

[Joep]

No, it isn't. And if you used an actual static export of your page against the Google tools you'd see that.

Well, from website of the plugin developer:

"This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts"

I am totally not into this "no it isn't" type of discussion if you don't even know what plugin I'm using. So I will stop monitoring or responding to this thread. Bye.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Well, from website of the plugin developer:

"This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts"

I am totally not into this "no it isn't" type of discussion if you don't even know what plugin I'm using. So I will stop monitoring or responding to this thread. Bye.

The plugin is activated only to send the "static" content after the WP engine processes the session. This comes at an immediate performance penalty. So no, it's not the same. You can think it's the same, but it is not. If it was actually possible to get WordPress to function as quickly as a static site, there would be little reason to switch to static content generation. Yet, that's exactly what is happening.

True static content is served by the web server without processing a single line of PHP, ASP or any other server side script. Your plugin cannot work that way, or none of your actual wordpress bits would work. Though I suppose if it's doing just that, it would be just as quick. But you'd have to be very careful what was cached and what sort of content was on the page.

So go ahead, ignore me. Shoot the guy trying to speak reason and wisdom for free. You wouldn't be the first, and you won't be the last. But if you want to behave like a child, I don't really want to help you either.

Though now I'm going to have to check that plugin out... because I'm curious. But, the FAQ specifically mentions you don't need to play with mod_rewrite, and .htaccess, which kinda tells me it's not doing what you just said it does. But I'd still say this thing looks far more comprehensive than your typical caching plugin.

Or, you can realize that WordPress is a sinking ship, and bail... I'm rebuilding on Hugo personally. The results I'm getting are quite telling, but my new site is far from ready for publication as yet.

 

[Rigo]

Are you using a compressible image type (.jpg)

Yes, however the compressed pics seem to not be fully accepted at the size they are supposed to be. In red are the file size stated in the media library. PageSpeed Insights sees a different size and reckons more could be trimmed off?
I've used imageresizer.com to do so:

No idea about the java scripts side of things.

 

[Rigo]

I accept a somewhat slower response

My desktop speed response is rated at 75 to 85 (medium).
That's the mobile speed that's awful at 35 to 46.
I wouldn't care too much about the speed but apparently Google is now putting more emphasis on it for ranking. In a very competitive environment, you just can't afford to ignore that.
For the kind of services I provide, very few people now use a desktop to look for support. So mobile rating has to be the best it can.

 

[Rigo]

caching plugin

I was previously using WP Fastest Cache for the last few years then switched about a couple of weeks ago to the one you're suggesting. Doesn't seem to make any difference.

 

[Rigo]

abandon Wordpress.

Won't be that easy as I'm not a developer myself. Unless Hugo has a way to simply convert the whole thing for the clueless . Which doesn't seem to be the case if you are rebuilding.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Won't be that easy as I'm not a developer myself. Unless Hugo has a way to simply convert the whole thing for the clueless . Which doesn't seem to be the case if you are rebuilding.

Well, it is... and yet it isn't...

I'm not a developer myself, but yet perhaps I should be? I did spend a bucket of money doing web app development before I changed focus to network administration. If you know any HTML / CSS at all, Hugo isn't any harder that WordPress. You feed it a template, and off it goes. The part that gets weird is you use markdown to create pages. So it's not a visual editor, and it's certainly more complicated than a word processor, but I wouldn't exactly call it hard.

Honestly, I find Hugo to be terribly infuriating, not because it's a poor product or idea. No, I find it infuriating because I created something stupidly similar to it in college, to make my home work easier. Netscape 4.0 was all the rage back then... and now here I am 20 years later, trying to get my brain to remember skills I haven't used in that time. So everything is like pulling teeth, and I'm not being very patient with myself.

BUT! Even with someone else's template doing most of the lifting, I am finding it's easier for me to create what I want in Hugo relative to doing the same job in WordPress.

Most of my time this week wasn't even really mucking about with the web code itself, but instead learning how to use Inkscape, because I needed to convert my logo into an SVG. Once that was done a dev buddy of mine pointed me at this wonderful thing: https://jakearchibald.github.io/svgomg/ Which given an SVG input, will strip out all the crap and condense it down to its minimal version. From there the web server can compress it on the way out. The end result is a vector logo that works at any resolution, that's 1/4 the size of the .png I was using. Now I'm working my away through the other icons I need, favicon, and the rest. I'll get it all together eventually. But when they say "modern formats" they aren't saying jpg or png... those are OLD, big... and inflexible.

From what I've read, if you want speed... you need true static. WordPress simply can't keep up.

I'm currently using this theme: https://www.zerostatic.io/theme/hugo-advance-pro/ The $60 to learn was well worth it. But they have several free ones on that site, and there are of course buckets more. But I point out ZeroStatic specifically because all of their themes are designed for perfect Google speed scores.

 

[Joep]

My desktop speed response is rated at 75 to 85 (medium).
That's the mobile speed that's awful at 35 to 46.
I wouldn't care too much about the speed but apparently Google is now putting more emphasis on it for ranking. In a very competitive environment, you just can't afford to ignore that.
For the kind of services I provide, very few people now use a desktop to look for support. So mobile rating has to be the best it can.

Yes, true. One more good reason to be less dependent on Google. Due to some f*ck up on their behalf my website was de-indexed or whatever it's called. It literally disappeared from their index. I was quite relieved to see that traffic didn't suffer all that much. Sites pointing to me, but even my own Twitter ad FB posts still drove traffic. My YT videos still drove traffic.

Anyway, try getting that corrected. Try getting their support. Stupid company. What I mean to say is being less dependent on Google Traffic and investing in that is probably more productive than giving into every demand Google makes. Once you get that speed fixed they will come up with something else. Just build a good website you're happy with, don't spend too much time on all those details.

I Wordpress works for you, don't listen to clowns who claim we need all go back to static again.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Oh, I can't wait to get my new site online, so I can show you just how wrong you are. Oh, and when I'm done I'll be able to pay pennies for hosting, on just about anything because there won't be a public database to worry about running anywhere.

This isn't just about speed, it's about ongoing costs and security. WordPress is an evil that's no longer necessary. There are simply better tools.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Won't be that easy as I'm not a developer myself. Unless Hugo has a way to simply convert the whole thing for the clueless . Which doesn't seem to be the case if you are rebuilding.

Stumbled across migration info in Hugo's documentation https://gohugo.io/tools/migrations/