SEO For Your Blog- Addition
In the last SEO post, called “Search Engine Optimization for Your Blog”, I realized reading over it last night that I forgot a major point. At least to Google, page load time is more crucial than ever. Google has stated, through representatives, in a round-about way, that they are attempting to speed up the internet. This, I believe, led to the code name for the new algorithm, which was “Google Caffeine”. In addition to the other tips I gave, another important tip is to work hard to decrease your page load time and speed up your site. How do you do this? I know of several major ways:
1. Reduce load intensive images. Use less images and make the ones you do use smaller. Instead of using HTML to reduce image sizes, alter the file to be the size you want displayed. Your site will speed up with less image bandwidth used.
2. Use CSS instead of coding every detail. If you are running a blog, you likely use WordPress or Moveable Type, which naturally rely on CSS for coding and design. Your site will speed up if you have compressed your coding using CSS, so you define certain styles and division properties.
3. Host as much as you can yourself. If you are using banner based advertising, try to host the images on your own server. Host everything you can yourself without drawing from another host. You are also relying on their bandwidth and speed to load your page.
4. Use GZip compression to speed up your site by caching pages and speeding up processes. All of my sites have GZip compression. If you are running a PHP related site, like a WordPress blog, there is a simple code you can use, especially if you use a Linux-based Apache 2 server. It was provided to me by GoDaddy here: Compressing Web Pages for Faster Load Times. I use it on every site I can, including this one. If you use WordPress, another good option is the W3 Total Cache plugin. I also use that on every site I can, including this one.
5. Use less code. You can do the same things with less code. Do everything you can do reduce the amount of coding you need to do the same thing. If there is less code, it loads quicker. Imagine reading a three word sentence as opposed to a five sentence paragraph. Computers, in essence, do the same thing. If they read less code, they finish reading sooner and load the page.
I hope this helps. For more tips on how to search engine optimize your blog, see the original post referring to the many ways you can get Google and Bing to like your site.
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