One of the most important lessons in learning how to blog is understanding how to improve your blog performance.
A blog that loads slowly drives away those precious readers that you have worked so hard to attract.
There are some great tools available to help you understand the speed of your blog but these aren't the easiest to use when you're first learning how to blog.
It's easier to apply some simple tips that will keep your blog posts and critically your side bar super speedy to load.
And the great thing about these tips is that they can actually get readers to stay longer on your blog.
It's very easy to over load your side bar in particular with everything you think a reader could possibly be interested in. These can just become a blur to the reader - you can get a much higher click through rate if you work out the most important actions you want a reader to take and give these dedicated pride of place on your side bar.
Which may mean I'm afraid dumping some stuff you really love such as loads of link party and feature buttons. I host two parties a week on my own blog ... Empty Your Archive & The Friday Baby Shower ... and of course I love seeing my buttons on other people's blogs but if I am being honest, I can't advise you to take up precious space on your side bar to display my buttons!
And all those popular post images you've got displayed, they will become like wallpaper if you don't change them frequently. Far better to have just a few big stand out images changed every couple of days that readers will really notice. And if you pop Pin It buttons underneath even better - they'll get ancient old posts trending on Pinterest again in no time!
Now I should put my hand up and say I still have a way to go on my own blog performance. I include Mommy Archive links to other bloggers in all of my posts and these do slow down the speed but the tips below have really improved my blog performance - it runs faster and I get more engagement. And that's got to be good!
How to Improve Your Blog Performance
- Only display brief summary of posts on home page - in Blogger insert jump breaks
- Remove all the post footer details from the home page
- Avoid too many 3rd party widgets in your side bars - if it's not essential ditch it
- Don't display more than 5 posts on your home page - in Blogger go to Posts & Comments and change the value in the Show at Most drop down list
- Resize actual photos to maximum size you need them for Pinterest impact
- Upload photos onto your blog - or Picassa if on Blogger - don't display via URL
- Optimise your pictures in Web Resizer - this fabulous free tool can often save another 50% on PicMonkey results!
- Remember a few great pictures are usually better than loads of average ones!
- Prune your side bars to essentials
- Ditch the link party & featured buttons out of your side bar - put them in separate page
- Don't include party buttons on specific posts - just have text links
- Don't have too many fancy fonts
- Just display a few big popular post images and change them as frequently as you can
- Be brutal about your ads - if they are not generating real revenue get rid of them
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And check out these other blog design posts from the Mommy Archive ...
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