So who has the best tips for speeding up WordPress sites???

List your ideas in the comments, if you already have a blog post on this topic, put the link to your post in the comments.

Please leave your Twitter handle at the end of your comment if you’d like your comments to be attributed to you.

******************************************

5 Plugins To Make Your WordPress Blog Faster

WP Super Cache by Donncha O Caoimh- A very fast caching plugin for WordPress. This is what has been saving me from traffic spikes. In a normal WordPress install, every time a visitor comes to your site WordPress builds the webpage for them from scratch by pulling information out of the database and processing a variety of things in the software. The bottom line is, this is time consuming – and usually after you’ve published a blog post, it doesn’t change very much except when people comment. When a page is loaded, WP Super Cache caches a static (one time generated) copy of that webpage, and then every time a new visitor comes, it preferentially gives them the cached version of the page. This is much faster, and has totally saved me when a rush of people come from one of my posts going viral.

GZIP Output by Austin Matzko- This plugin automatically compresses CSS, Javascript and HTML output, allowing it to travel faster from your blog to a visitor’s browser. According to Best Practices On Yahoo! Developer Network: “Gzipping generally reduces the response size by about 70%. Approximately 90% of today’s Internet traffic travels through browsers that claim to support gzip.” This is a simple change that will not affect what your readers see at all – except that it will load in their browser faster.

WP Minify by Thaya Kareeson- This plugin uses the Minify engine to combine and compress JS and CSS files to improve page load time. Like the previous plugin, it also automatically shrinks the size of your files without you having to do anything.

W3 Total Cache by Frederick Townes- If I was starting a brand new blog today, this is what I would use on day one – and then go with a more complicated set up (like I have currently) after it grows. This plugin is amazing. It includes minify capabilities, caching (but less aggressive than WP Super Cache) and GZip compression.

Free CDN by Phoenixheart- If you have static files (images, javascript, css) taking a long time to load and slowing your site down, you may benefit by installing Free CDN – especially if you have large images. Briefly, a CDN is a content delivery network. Static files are cached on the CDN and pulled from their servers instead of your own – which means that your server has to do less work, and potentially can serve more people at once, faster.

Bonus: Upgrade WordPress! This isn’t a plugin, but every time a new version of WordPress there’s a good chance they’ve optimized the software so it runs faster than before. Be sure to test your blog after you upgrade to make sure everything still runs smoothly.

from Darren Rowse at problogger.net

There are some really good stats in this video! If anyone is considering using Social Media, but is a little unsure how it works and how it can truly benefit your brand and business, watch this video! You will want to get involved instantly…If after watching the video you are still unsure, leave a comment with your questions and concerns and I will do my best to address them!

What do you think? Was this useful? I sure would love to hear your thoughts, and please link up, if you have more great content on social media share it! Leave your links in the comment section!

Have you read it yet!!??? If not its a must read, click the book get a special sales price today!!

In the Phoenix AZ Business Journal;

Arizona unemployment inches to 9.3 percent

Arizona lost 177,600 jobs between October 2008 and October 2009, mostly in the construction, manufacturing, retail and tourism sectors. The Phoenix metro area accounted for 135,100 of those losses, though it gained 13,800 jobs between September and October.

According to the article there are thousands of people in 4 particular industries out of work. What are they doing? I am sure that they have been doing everything they can to find employment, some have probably even started working at McDonald’s or WalMart. And there is no shame in that, but I am sure that many of these people have stepped away from their passions and the things they love doing so they could provide for their families! And there is no shame in that! I am also sure that many of these people would love to get back to doing the thing they love to do. And there is a way to do that, while working somewhere else, by using Social Media to leverage your time and efforts.

I honestly believe that the days of the printed resume and the door to door job search are coming to an end…In a world where corporations and businesses are able to find the people they want through social media, it is harder to find a job and provide the type of information that these companies want, especially in an economy where companies do not want to waist money hiring the wrong person.  I believe that the companies are putting more upfront work and effort into prescreening and searching for qualified individuals.  When you can go to Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and even do a Google blog search to find the people that are qualified, why would companies spend countless hours and money putting 12 people through a hiring process with anticipations of only 10% making the cut?…I realize that they still do this, but with more unemployment and more qualified unemployment, more and more companies will start seeking out those people they want instead of hoping they are 1 of the 10%!!

Where do people need to be if they want to be hand chosen by corporations that are prescreening and pre qualifying people and offering jobs to those who meet the requirements?  In the same social media platforms making noise. I realize that a lot of professionals are using Linkedin, and linkedin has its positives, but there are so many more effective tools that people who are wanting to be chosen for employment need to be using.

Job hunting is a full time job.  If you truly want to find good employment, job hunting will become your full time job. You will be working as a full time sales person when you are looking for a job.  Your product is one of a kind, its you!  So it should be the easiest sale you have ever had to make… There is no service or product to learn, you just need to be you!  And let people get to know you, see that you are good at what you do and then be patient. Yes, you must be patient, this is not going to happen overnight, remember I said that job hunting will become your full time job.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could leverage some of your time, and let the technology of these Social Media platforms do some of the work for you! Finding a job wether working or not is going to be time consuming. If you learn to take advantage of these social media platforms and use them you might just find them useful.

Now if you are thinking, ‘This sounds great and all, but I am just are not computer savvy!’ Thats fine! It does not take much to figure out how to make it work or to actually use these services.

In fact it is so simple that I am sure I can show you in 60 minutes how to start taking advantage of these Social Media Tools like; Twitter, Facebook and Blogging!

The key to be successful at anything we do in life is this, 1. Love IT and 2. Find a way to share it with other people.  If you are out of work or not doing the thing you love the most, you might be missing out on huge opportunities if you are not getting socially involved! You could develop such a community online that would allow you numerous opportunities for employment, but that would also allow you opportunities for self employment if you so desired.

Here is what I have to offer!!

******************************************
A FREE 60 min. Seminar, where I will teach you how to properly set up your social media accounts and start building your personal brand.

The seminar outline;

1. Getting Noticed, why it is the only way to survive
2. How to get noticed
1. getting resumes online and indexed in google search
2. becoming the expert
3. putting yourself (your brand) out there
4. finding a platform that fits your DNA
3. Using the FREE tools available
1. websites
2. blogs
3. twitter
4. facebook
5. linkedin
6. Flickr (if photos)
7. Youtube (if video)
4. How to get started
1. first steps to building a personal brand
2. tacking action TODAY!

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED!

Here is what you do, simply fill out the form bellow and I will contact you about setting up a seminar in your City/State or let you know where we are holding our next event!