In this fast paced impatient world, a slow website can kill your business. People don’t like to wait for pages to load. They want the information now.

I have already written about the importance of choosing a good host for your website. I have also recommended the implementation of CloudFlare. But there is another factor which many people often overlook. Sometimes a slow website just needs some more memory.

The default memory allocation for WordPress is 40 megabytes. Unless you are running a simple website with a minimalistic theme and few plugins, this may not be enough memory. Your visitors may experience slow page loads and even error pages.

Fortunately, there is a simple way to fix this memory problem. You can tell WordPress to use more memory. Here’s how:

You need to access the root folder of your WordPress installation either via your Cpanel file manager or FTP. Open the file called WP-CONFIG.PHP

Add this right before the line that says, “Happy Blogging”:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

Make sure you save the file.

Usually, this should do the trick. This is telling WordPress to use more server memory.

Sometimes, you may have to also modify the PHP.INI file (which is also found in the root) or you may have to contact your host and ask them to increase the server memory limits.

If you need help or have questions, please click here to contact me.

The post Slow website? It may not have enough memory appeared first on Website Issues, WordPress errors, Maneo Web.

I was testing a website tonight, trying to figure out why it was loading so slowly even after we had optimized it for speed by using a cache, css/js optimization, and image compression. We were testing at more than three seconds when I was convinced that it should be loading at a second or less. This difference in seconds may not seem like much to you but remember that Google takes speed into account when ranking websites. Optimizing website speed is an absolute must when you are conducting SEO for your site.

After playing around with a few settings and looking at the actual files that were being loaded, I finally discovered the problem. A certain social sharing plugin which shall remain nameless (there are many of them in the WordPress plugin repository) was the culprit. The scripts that were being loaded with this plugin were significantly large. When I disabled the plugin, my site speed went from 3.40 seconds down to 880 ms! That is a significant increase in speed by any standard.

So what should you do if you find yourself using a social sharing plugin that is increasing page load times? Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Disable the plugin – I’m not convinced that you actually need a social sharing plugin these days. I think that most people can figure out how to share a page without your help.
2. Create your own links – This may be a little too complicated for some, but you can create your own links. Check out a site like this one, to learn how!
3. Find a lightweight plugin – If you must use a plugin, do some testing with different ones first. Find one that doesn’t significantly impact your site load speed.

In case you are wondering what I use to test load times, here they are:

• Google PageSpeed
• Pingdom

Good luck! If you need help with improving your page speeds, feel free to contact me by clicking here.

The post Why You Might Want to Turn Social Sharing Plugins Off appeared first on Website Issues, WordPress errors, Maneo Web.