Optimizing Your WordPress Site

Optimizing WordPress
Findable, Future-Proof & Fast
Phil Buckley July 2016 Raleigh SEO Meetup
19 things that you need to know

Choose a sustainable theme
@1918 3
Although you can change themes anytime you want, it’s not
as easy as it seems. Different themes use different features,
image sizes and widgets.
Choose a theme as if you’ll never change it… because you
probably won’t.

Don’t Modify the HTML
@1918 4
It’s easy to add a snippet into the header.php file for your
theme. Don’t do it.
Theme updates will overwrite that modification. Use the
power of functions.php to inject into your templates.

Use Child Themes
@1918 5
When you update a theme, everything except the images
and content can change. If you modify a template, it will get
overwritten with the next theme update… unless you are
modifying a child theme.
Using (or creating) a child theme allows you to update the
main theme without overwriting the child’s mods.

Limit Plugins
@1918 7
There’s a plugin for everything, but you probably don’t need
most of them. They can slow down your site, cause security
problems and even break other features.
Try to accomplish what you need without a plugin first, use
plugins only to accomplish important things.

Essential Plugins
@1918 8
You can live without most plugins, but here’s some that I
always install:
• Akismet (spam killer)
• Cookies for Comments (human spam killer)
• Jetpack (WordPress additional functionality)
• Yoast SEO (SEO simplified)

Build a Comment Blacklist
@1918 10
Spammers never sleep. Build out a blacklist that contains
phrases that trigger either moderation or spamming.
Activate Akismet before you go live!
Mine runs from “-online” to “Zyrtec” and if a comment
contains any of those words, it gets flagged for moderation.

Use Better Permalinks
@1918 12
You can choose any URL structure you want, so don’t default
to example.com/?p=123.
I usually recommend a Custom Structure:
http://example.com/%category%/%postname%

Build Smarter Slugs
@1918 13
You can edit the URL of the page to be slightly different than
the title of your post.

Titles
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and other stuff close by

Titles vs Headlines
@1918 15
When you write in the “Enter Title Here” box, Wordpress will
use that for the page title and page headline (h1) by default.
You don’t have to accept the defaults!

Meta Description
@1918 18
Don’t think of this as a “description” of the page. Think of it
as an AdWords snippet for the page.
Clickability is the key. Make me want to click your result.

Featured Images
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This is the image that will be shared with your link when you
post to social media – choose something interesting.
A great image can increase click throughs over 400%

Scrolling
@1918 23
Try to insert an image (or something non-text) often enough
that when visitors scroll down the page, it’s never just a
giant block of text.

Actions & Filters
@1918 25
//* Change the footer text *//
add_filter('genesis_footer_creds_text', ‘my_footer_creds_filter');
function my_footer_creds_filter( $creds ) {
$creds = '[footer_copyright] · <a href="http://1918.me">1918.me</a>';
return $creds;
}
//* Add additional fields to user accounts *//
function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
//** Add Twitter */
$contactmethods['twitter'] = 'Twitter profile URL';
//** Add Facebook */
$contactmethods['facebook'] = 'Facebook profile URL';

//* Change the footer text *//
@1918 26

@1918 27

@1918 28

@1918 29
Smarter Code
Added local business schema markup to the footer.

Smart Frameworks
@1918 31
Some themes sit on top of a “framework” that adds
additional hooks for you to manipulate.
The framework is a parent theme and the “designed theme”
is a child theme.

Typical Theme Installation
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Smart Frameworks I’ve Tried
@1918 33
• Genesis by Studiopress
• Headway
• Divi by Elegant Themes
• Thesis 2.0 by DIY themes

Genesis Framework
@1918 34
Using the Simple Hooks plugin I
can inject code snippets.
This example is adding GA, Font
Awesome CSS and the Facebook
tracking pixel.

Default Forms
@1918 36
WordPress comes with a perfectly good form, but it’s
functionality is limited.
For serious forms, you’ll want to buy a better solution.
I recently started using NinjaForms and love it.

Default Forms
@1918 37
WordPress comes with a perfectly good form, but it’s
functionality is limited.
For serious forms, you’ll want to buy a better solution.
I recently started using NinjaForms and love it.

Conditional Logic
@1918 38
If a visitor answers question 1,
display question 2,
otherwise jump to question 3.
Example: this question only
appears if 2 previous questions
have certain answers.

Faster is Better
@1918 40
User and search bots like sites that respond quickly.
You have more control over it than you know.

Hosting
@1918 41
You get what you pay for… to a point.
Decide up front what you can afford, then find the best for
that price. If $100/year seems like crazy-expensive luxury,
you will be limited in your choices.
Think of all the crap you spend $10/month on now.

Does Hosting Really Matter?
@1918 42

Waterfall
@1918 43
Check your WordPress site with a tool that tracks download
speed.
• Gtmetrix
• Pingdom
• Web Page Test

Caching
@1918 45
Think about how often the parts of your site change. You
could probably take advantage of aggressive caching. WP
Super Cache actually builds out static html pages to load
your site even faster.
W3 Total Cache is also a great free option.

Canonicalization
@1918 46
Make sure your site is properly canonicalized! If you’re not
sure what that means, think of it as www or non-www
version of your site.
Pick one version and stick with it.

A Canonicalization True Story
@1918 47
There was a site that responded to both www and non-www with a 200 (OK) code. This was the problem when you asked for
the non-www version…
1. Request non-www version of the site.
2. Web server looks in the folder where WordPress will serve the page.
3. Sees in the .htaccess file that it should check the cached file (look at you caching files!)
4. Checks the cache for that file – it doesn’t exist.
5. Back to WordPress to create that page on the fly.
6. WordPress has to make a request to the database, where it realizes the url to serve should be the www version of the
site.
7. Web server now returns the headers for the 301 redirect.
8. Web server now returns to the folder from step 2.
9. Sees the .htaccess file that it should check for the cached file just like before.
10. Checks for the cached file, it still doesn’t exist.
11. WordPress generates that file on the fly and starts to load the page.

Optimizing Your WordPress Site

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