1.
Speed up your WordPress site
Alan Lok
WirelessLinx Inc.

2.
Motivations
User experience1
Search engine optimization2
Your wallet
Less on-call issues!
1: http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/02/28/4-awesome-slides-showing-how-page-speed-correlates-to-business-metrics-at-walmart-com/
2: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

3.
What is a LAMP stack
Database PHP Engine
Your app
Operating System
Web Server
Performance gains can be found in each layer
Reverse Proxy
Cache

4.
Internal Tune-ups
Digging into your WordPress site to make it better

5.
The simple stuff
Update your plugins
Remove unused themes and plugins
404 errors

6.
WordPress plugins to speed things up
W3 Total Cache
Super Cache
Zen Cache

7.
Reduce
Images,
JS,CSS
Reuse
Code
(CSS,JS,
HTML,PHP)
Refactor
HTTP Response
Content Body

8.
Profile your application
Analyze your application with a PHP profiler such as BlackFire.io or xdebug/
cachegrind
Look for high number of apply_filters, mysql calls, and wp_cache_get

9.
Profile your DOM
Make your page render faster too

10.
Database
Check your slow query log
Debug: log your database queries
Try to “explain” your query
Trim un-needed data (comments,
deleted posts, etc…)

11.
Have you been hacked?
Hacked instances are typically slower because of additional JS/PHP
payload
Check your installation / hosting environment
Some command line tools: wp-cli, findbot.pl
Online tools: https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/ and Google Webmaster Tools

12.
Operational Improvements
Improvements you can make outside WordPress

13.
You get what you pay for
There is no such thing as
“unlimited” hosting or space
Ensure you are paying for the
level of performance you expect
given the traffic estimates
Diminishing returns on
performance when buying more
resources

14.
Database
MySQL versions and variations
(MariaDB, Percona, Community)
DB Engine: Convert tables from
MyISAM to InnoDB
Some* my.cnf tuning
InnoDB buffer size, Query Caching
HyperDB for database splitting*
Some performance references:
http://www.liquidweb.com/kb/mysql-5-1-vs-5-5-vs-5-6-performance-comparison/
https://www.percona.com/blog/2011/10/10/mysql-versions-shootout/
http://vbtechsupport.com/657/

15.
Web Server Technology
Web server technologies:
nginx vs Apache
PHP process management in Apache
php-fpm vs mod_php vs hhvm
prefork, vs worker/event
mod_pagespeed, php-opcache
When does it matter?
More food for thought:
http://blog.bitnami.com/2014/06/performance-enhacements-for-apache-and.html
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/apache-vs-nginx-practical-considerations
http://hhvm.com/blog/9293/lockdown-results-and-hhvm-performance
Credit: Digital Ocean

16.
HTTP changes
Content compression
Expiry headers for content type
Cache directive
References:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7234
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec13.html
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-content-efficiency/http-caching?hl=en

17.
Content Delivery
Reducing number of access to
your web server will reduce your
costs (bandwidth and CPU needs)
Consider using public CDN for
shared JS/CSS
Pay for a cheap CDN and use a
plugin to rewrite your assets to
the CDN

18.
Web Application Protection*
SaaS: Sucuri / CloudFlare /
Incapsula / Akamai
Plugins: WordFence / Better WP
Security
Spam Protection: Akismet
PHP: suhosin
Server: mod_security
*not an exhaustive list or endorsement

19.
Monitor your site
Application Performance
Monitor (eg. New Relic,
AppDynamics)
Server Monitoring (eg.
LongView, CloudWatch,
DataDog)
Last mile / Page Health
(eg. Pingdom, New Relic
Synthetics, Gomez)

20.
Thanks!
Twitter: @alan_lok
Web: http://wlx.ca
Slideshare: www.slideshare.net/alanlok1