How To Find Out The Loading Time of Your Blog
Have you ever arrived on a blog, or site and just sit there waiting for it to load? Have you listened to that little voice in your head going, "come on, come on"? I confess and plead guilty of this! It is one of the reasons why I multi-task simply because I don't have time and I want to get things done.
There are a few ways you can speed up the loading time of your blog:
StopWatch--Just type in your URL and see how long it took to load up your page. Mine took almost 8.5 seconds, and I'm aiming for around 6.5 seconds or less. This means I need to do a little more blog cleaning.
Pingdom Tools--This is another option to test the loading time of your blog! This software gives me a close result of loading time as StopWatch, but I like this better. Pingdom Tools offers an overall look of your blog, and shows you the details of your posts also. You can see which post, or gadget, or page that took the longest to load.
Remember though, internet also has the "traffic-jammed" periods. Don't get frustrated if it took a little longer to load your blog at times, and take into consideration the speed of your internet connection as well.
There are a few ways you can speed up the loading time of your blog:
- Cut down the size of your photos, instead of large size, use small
- Limit the numbers of images in your post, two to three pictures are adequate enough
- Go to your "setting", under "format", and chose to display less posts on your homepage
- Remove some gadgets on your sidebar that serve no purpose
- Cut down the size of your header's image
- Eliminate auto play music! We all have different taste in music, and it's annoying to arrive on the blog that has music blasting. It also distracts visitors from reading your post!
StopWatch--Just type in your URL and see how long it took to load up your page. Mine took almost 8.5 seconds, and I'm aiming for around 6.5 seconds or less. This means I need to do a little more blog cleaning.
Pingdom Tools--This is another option to test the loading time of your blog! This software gives me a close result of loading time as StopWatch, but I like this better. Pingdom Tools offers an overall look of your blog, and shows you the details of your posts also. You can see which post, or gadget, or page that took the longest to load.
Remember though, internet also has the "traffic-jammed" periods. Don't get frustrated if it took a little longer to load your blog at times, and take into consideration the speed of your internet connection as well.
Thank you for post this, Icy! I've always wondered how long my blog takes to load compared to others.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very good post, Icy. I have often wondered why some blogs take so long to load. I think that is great that you are trying to do different things to make your blog load faster. I wish that more people would do that. It would make it so much easier for people to check them out if they didn't take so long to load. Sometimes I get frustrated waiting for someone's page to load and I will just close it and never read it. I think that your advice would do wonders for other bloggers.
ReplyDeleteFascinating! Stop Watch doesn't work for mine since it 'breaks out of the frame', but Pingdom says it takes 6.9 seconds. Yay!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that.
And count me in on the anti-blog music side. Unless there's a very good reason for me to be there (eg, as part of the ABC team), hearing music blasting out from someone's blog usually makes me click instantly away. I hate it. I usually have several tabs open, and often I'm listening to my own music. so it just ends up as a hideous cacophony and makes me want to scream!
Good information Icy, I often run into blogs that take forever to load. I have done all of these things and my blog loads quickly for me (but for others using a different OS or browser I'm not sure).
ReplyDeleteThat's cool. I've just checked my blogs and they are about the 4. 1 mark so I guess this is good.
ReplyDeleteThanks for a very helpful post.
Icy, these are good tips. I know mine takes way too long to load and I know I post not only way too many photos but large size photos which along with footer stuff I don't need makes it slow. I have to clean it up one of these days.
ReplyDeleteIcy, you always come up with such helpful info. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIcy, I took your suggestions. I created pages for sidebar stuff that was not pertinent to my blog and cleaned it up a bit. The load time now is much better. Thanks for these tips.
ReplyDelete