Willie Jackson is a senior marketer and engineer who leads the performance team at W3 EDGE. He was formerly the CTO of Seth Godin's Domino Project. He discusses his background transitioning from a corporate IT consultant job to freelance web design and development. He then inherited a fast-growing blog and learned how to scale it. The presentation focuses on web performance optimization approaches including reducing execution time, caching output, and using a persistent data store. It also discusses tools like W3 Total Cache and measuring performance.

1. Willie Jackson
Senior Marketer and Engineer
W3 EDGE
Run paid support for W3 Total Cache
Performance Team Lead at W3 EDGE
Former CTO of Seth Godin's Domino Project
Inside Out: A Web Performance Philosophy

2. My story
• Corporate job: IT Consultant with Accenture
• Transitioned into freelance web design and dev
• Inherited a fast-growing blog, learned to scale

3. The case for speed has
been established. It’s not a
question of IF you should
care…
LAYING A FOUNDATION

4. Goals
• Reduce execution time
• Prevent requests from hitting the app server
• Use a persistent data store whenever possible
• Cache output for all unauthenticated users

5. Time is money
• Google: 500ms = 20% drop in traffic
• Yahoo!: 400ms = 5-9% drop in traffic
• Amazon: 100ms = 1% drop in sales

6. In any system, the greatest
performance is achieved
through component
specialization.
INSIDE OUT

7. It’s all about PHP
• WPO starts with understanding PHP
• Slowest component of the stack
• Layers of caching

8. Front end philosophy
• Make less
• Make it smaller
• Make it last
• Make it count

9. You're never done
• Measure
• Analyze
• Monitor

10. W3TC represents
an approach to
web performance
W3TC APPROACH

11. Web Performance Framework
• Lessons learned from scaling Mashable
• How many of you use Basecamp?
• Caching not sexy, but necessary

12. What it does
• Provides a persistent data store
• Modularity: use what you need

13. Perspective
• We could make it easier
• We could make assumptions
• Our goal is not small improvements

14. • CW Image Optimizer
• WP-Optimize
• P3 Plugin Performance Profiler
• WordPress SEO
• Image Optim
WRITE THIS DOWN

15. Sunglasses: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15268848@N00/1436902852
Hosting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46901945@N00/2886146737/sizes/z/in/photostream
Tools: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43799668@N02/6017452305
Computer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46901945@N00/1925366375
Sunglasses Pink: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21549678@N08/4401737770
PHOTO
CREDITS

16. wjackson@w3-edge.com
www.w3-edge.com
williejackson.com
@williejackson