So far you optimized the software aspect in your WordPress blog and in last post I discussed how to select good hardware infrastructure as well. Now you must be having super speedy WordPress blog. But here I’m trying to take you to the next level of performance.
Your web server is getting data from your MySQL database, create dynamic web pages and present them to visitors. But if you take a closer look, most of the content in your webpage are static and not getting changed over a period of time. Previously we enabled browser caching to prevent loading the static content over and over again from server. However, caching alone would not give you optimum performance.
When it comes to dynamic web content, you have no option but to deliver them from your web server. But think about static content such as images, CCS and JS. There are no dynamic content creations, only a content delivery. For optimum performance you can host those contents in multiple geographical locations. Then users will be able to fetch static content from nearest location which will be way faster than single server.
This is a great idea but you must be thinking about the cost. To setup this kind of hosting backbone you will need many web serves all around the world. Definitely it will cost you a fortune. But if you take a good look, there are some solutions even you can use.
Roadmap
What is a Content Delivery Network?
Content Delivery Network is a web hosting service, but they are not capable of executing server side scripting or databases. They can only deliver static content. Generally they have data centers all round the world. So users can access the nearest center and get static content quickly. The whole process is transparent to users. They just have to look up the URL, and dynamic content will be delivered from web server and static content will be delivered from CDN automatically.
Amazone Cloud Front is a great content delivery network service. It’s spread all around the world and giving high performance service. Best thing is, it’s unbelievably cheap. So anyone would be able to use it.
But here I’m trying to give you a totally free solution. Further, this is fully automated; therefore no complex configurations are needed and provide extra services as well. They have more than 20 data centers around the world to deliver static content. It’s CloudFlare.
How to Configure Cloud Flare with Your Blog?
Normally you will have to re write URLs of your static content to deliver them from CDN. But with CloudFlare you only have to change the nameserver records in your domain. Then it handles the rest of it.
- Go to CloudFlare and create an account
- During the registration processes you will have to go through several steps
- There you will have to change NS records and finally update your nameserves in domain control panel.
That’s all and you are done. Now all the traffic that comes to your website goes through CloudFlare. It automatically stores your static content, optimizes them, provides security and gives analytical report of visitors as well.
Now your visitors will get static content from CloudFlare CDN and only for dynamic content they will go to your web server. This will save lots of server resources and make it work faster. Your visitors will get static content from nearest location. So page load will be super speedy for them. Though CloudFlare keep copies of your static content, they respect your caching rules. So they will work the same.
Now you have taken all the possible steps toward High performance WordPress blog. Now your blog must be loading within few seconds or may be within less than one second. With time you will notice that you are getting good search engine traffic as well as good user engagement.
This is the last episode of “Road Map to High Performance WordPress Blog”. In case you need further help to optimize your wordpress blog, drop a comment below.
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Tags: #Blog #Performance #SEO #Wordpress