Chapter 1: A Guide To This Guide ← You are here

Chapter 2: Why Page Speed Matters To Digital Marketing

Chapter 3: What Impacts Page Speed?

Chapter 4: Novice – Image Compression And Such

Chapter 5: Intermediate – Server Compression And Geekery

Chapter 6: Advanced – Varnish, Apache and nginx

Chapter 7: Tools

Chapter 8: Glossary

Hidden Track: WordPress Optimization

How this guide is organized. Many scales and rating systems. We wonder if we over-complicated things. Note: If you’re an experienced web geek, you can skip this section.

The stuff that speeds up (or slows down) a web site is truly a random pile of tweaks, tips and changes. It’s a ton of little things that add up to enormous impact for prospects, customers, and search engines alike.

The easiest stuff is at the start of the guide. The easiest stuff for each chapter is at the start of the chapter.

‘Easier’ recommendations require less expertise to implement, as well as less access to the guts of the web site. The easiest recommendations require basic software everyone has or can obtain for free and the lowest level of server access. The hardest require deep, deep expertise in web servers and how they work and direct access to the guts of those servers. Approach with caution.

By the way, you can also just hire us. We do page speed optimization for our clients.

Where do I start?

If this is your first look at page speed optimization, or if you’re pretty advanced and are trying to figure out how to allocate resources, go through this book in order, first to last.

If you know what you’re doing but want to see if you’re sane, have a look at Chapter 5: Intermediate.

If you’re a serious nerd and want to learn about server configurations, proxies and PHP acceleration, go to Chapter 6: Advanced.

Note: If you’re a WordPress user, you may be tempted to jump straight to the hidden track. Don’t do it! Learn the basics. Then read the specific tips we’ve got for you.

Onward.