Speed Up WordPress Website using Compression in 5 minutes

GZip Compression

WordPress is memory intensive and is a memory hog. The fact that it occupies lots of CPU resources and memory is nothing new. One of the best ways to optimize your WordPress website is by using compression.

What is Compression?

Compression can also be applied to websites just like files, folders are compressed in formats like .zip , .rar etc. In websites, HTTP compression, otherwise known as content encoding, is a publicly defined way to compress textual content transferred from web servers to browsers. HTTP compression uses public domain compression algorithms, like gzip and compress, to compress XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, and other text files at the server.

Most of my traffic comes from modern browsers, and quite frankly, most of my users are fairly tech-savvy. Google and Yahoo use gZip compression on their websites.

How to use G Zip Compression in WordPress

Compression reduces response times by reducing the size of the HTTP response. Gzip is the most popular and effective compression method currently available and generally reduces the response size by about 70%. Approximately 90% of today’s Internet traffic travels through browsers that claim to support g zip.

If you want to take advantage of GZIP compression ( and we do recommend this ), then you WILL need an .htaccess file to accomplish that part. GZIP compression is something that should really be enabled at the Apache level or inside your php.ini file. GZIP compression can be used for things like JavaScript and CSS files as well, so why bother turning it on for only WordPress generated pages when you can enable GZIP at the server level and cover all the bases.

If your installation of Apache does not have mod_deflate installed. You can also enable GZIP compression using PHP configuration alone. In your php.ini file, you can simply add the following line anywhere: zlib.output_compression = on

Easiest Way to Enable G Zip in WordPress

If you want to enable GZIP, in your WordPress installation directory put the following few lines in the .htaccess file and that is all there is to it. GZIP is now enabled!

Share Google Analytics Data in 60 seconds

Google Analytics data with your friends or prospective advertisers / buyers is very easy using the Share by Email option within Google Analytics Dashboard. You do not need to invite the other party to access your account and grant them viewing permissions.

You can surely send them a screenshot but sending it through Google itself improves the credibility and authenticity of the report.

Share Data in 60 Seconds

Step 1.
Log-into your Google Analytics account

Step 2.
Click on the little email icon just above where it says Dashboard.

Google Analytics

Step 3.
Fill in the email address of the receiver, subject and a description if you’d wish. You also need to select an appropriate format for your analytics report. The default is PDF.

Google Analytics

Step 4.
Fill in the Verification Word and hit Send. That’s it!
How do you share your Analytics Data with webmasters and your readers?

Track your Keyword Rankings from within WordPress

Ultimate Rank Protector

Ultimate Rank Protector is a WordPress Plugin that tracks your rankings in Search Engines for given Keywords from within WordPress itself. So, you can just specify your preferred keywords for a post/page whose SERP rankings you wish to track and it does the rest.

I had a chance to try out the WordPress Plugin – Ultimate Rank Protector and I decided to install it and test it on ProgrammingKid.com to track the Keyword Rankings in Google.

Features of Ultimate Rank Protector WordPress Plugin

Track keyword ranks across many search engines

See the changes in your keyword ranking
Track the number of your back-links
Know how many back-links you have gained over time with Ultimate Rank Protector.
Track unlimited keywords, unlimited posts and pages and unlimited websites
Video Review and Keyword Tracking
I put Ultimate Rank Protector to the test and ran it on this website, below you can find the keyword tracking for a couple of posts that I did. It works well and works beautifully! See for yourself.

So, what are you waiting for?
This is one of a kind, WordPress Plugin that has come out with features with which you can track Keyword rankings in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) instantly from the convince of your WordPress dashboard.