Why should you forget about the scores if you want to speed up your website? Why would using CDN might not help you improve your site speed? How do you get to know your hosting is fast enough? Why does Twitter with all its funny GIFs load lightning-fast and your visitors have to wait for ages while one single kitten gets loaded? How do you make video and images on your website load really fast?

1. ● WordPress lover since 2010
● WordPress scaling enthusiast
● Loves spaghetti with tomato and basil
● Swims 4,3 km per hour freestyle
Sabrina Zeidan

2. Why care?
https://wpostats.com

3. 5 Steps
To A Faster Website
WordCamp Long Beach, CA 2019

4. 1. Learn how to measure correctly
2. Check basic stuff
3. Take care of media
4. Go further
5. Keep an eye on it

5. MEASURE Step 1:
Measure correctly

6. ➢ It’s not about your perception
MEASURE

8. ➢ It’s not about your perception
➢ It’s not about the scores
MEASURE

9. * Source: https://wp-rocket.me/blog/pingdom-vs-gtmetrix-vs-webpagetest-different/
Pingdom
GtMetrix
WebPageTest

10. ➢ It’s not about your perception
➢ It’s not about the scores
➢ It’s not about the tools
MEASURE

11. It’s all about your users
MEASURE

12. How to measure load time correctly
1. numbers!
2. location
3. connection
4. run several times
5. different page types
MEASURE

13. How good isMEASURE
Photo creds to @Rarst

14. MEASURE
1. Speed Index < 3 seconds
2. Request count < 50
3. Page weight < 500KB
Some numbers:
* Recommended by Google

15. MEASURE
1. Speed Index = 6.08 seconds
2. Request count = 124
3. Page weight = 3.18 MB
Some other numbers [REAL]:
* Average for US reported by Google

16. 20% faster
than competitors is
MEASURE
Photo creds to @Rarst

17. Step 2:
Check basic stuff
CHECKBASICS

18. CHECKBASICS
https://wordpress.org/plugins/display-php-version/
PHP version is 7.3

19. CHECKBASICS
https://http2.pro
Server is HTTP/2
Creds to Techslides.com

20. CHECKBASICS
https://www.bytecheck.com/
TTFB is < 200ms

21. https://www.giftofspeed.com/cache-checker/
CHECKBASICS
Browser caching is enabled

22. CHECKBASICS
Page Caching is enabled
+Preloading

23. CHECKBASICS
https://www.giftofspeed.com/gzip-test/
GZIP is enabled

24. Check the basics:
1. PHP version is 7.3
2. Server is HTTP/2
3. TTFB <200ms
4. Browser caching is on
5. Page caching is on
6. GZIP is enabled
CHECKBASICS

25. Step 3:
Take care of media
MEDIA

26. Serve scaled imagesMEDIA

27. -99.5%
https://sabrinazeidan.com/serve-scaled-images-wordpress/
before
2071x2083 pixels
840KB
after
43x43 pixels
3.8KB
MEDIA Serve scaled images

28. Losslessly compress images
-75%
before
7.92 MB
after
1.97 MB
Imagify
Mass Image Compressor
MEDIA

29. Losslessly compress videos
-91%
before
6.90 MB
after
601 Kb
FFMPEG
MEDIA

30. after
133KB
Turn funny GIFs into MP4
-92%
before
1.58 MB
EZGIF
MEDIA

31. LazyLoad images and videos
-22%
before
3.2s
after
2.5s
https://sabrinazeidan.com/embed-youtube-video-wordpress-without-slowing/
WP Rocket
MEDIA

32. Media improvements:
1. Serve scaled images
2. Losslessly compress images
3. Losslessly compress videos
4. GIFs -> MP4
5. LazyLoad both images and videos
MEDIA

34. No magic ¯_(ツ)_/¯

35. Step 4: Go further
GOFURTHER
1. Find the leaks https://www.webpagetest.org
2. Learn more
a. https://twitter.com/igrigorik
b. https://twitter.com/patmeenan
c. https://twitter.com/rick_viscomi
3. Hire an expert (mind the step 1!)

36. Step 5: Keep an eye on it
KEEPANEYE
1. Media maintenance
2. Database maintenance
3. Updates
4. Development
5. Monitor loading times

37. https://wordpress.org/plugins/speedguard/
KEEPANEYE

38. Get in touch with me:
● @sabrina_zeidan
● http://sabrinazeidan.com/
● sabrinazeidan@gmail.com
● or just say “Hi” right after this talk is over :)
Questions?
WordCamp Long Beach 2019