Plugins Worth Plug’n In! [PODCAST]

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WordPress Optimizing Plugins

Episode 4: Week of 08/15/2011

Welcome to Episode #4 of our podcast…
“Plugins Worth Plug’n In!”

This week we focus on plugins to optimize your WordPress site.   There are 3 main areas of optimization that we’ll cover this week:

• Database Optimization
• Image Optimization
• JavaScript & CSS Optimization

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Show Notes for: Episode 4: Week of 08/15/2011

Here’s  a brief summary of the organizing plugins covered:

• WP Optimize: Pros: Easy to Use, clear old pages/posts/comments and a quick way to change usernames.  Cons: Hasn’t been updated since March 2011 and still shows compatible up to 3.1.4 (though users confirm it is compatible with 3.2.1).

• WP Database Optimizer: Pros: Allows for automated Database Optimization.  Cons: Doesn’t have as nice of a user interface (as WP Optimize), but still very easy to setup and use.

• WP Smush.it: Pros: Nice, easy plugin to “smush” images for faster load times.  Cons: If you haven’t uploaded previous images through the Media Library, you may be out of luck (WP Smush.it integrates with this fairly nicely though if you are using it).

• WP Minify: Pros: Uses the widely accepted minify engine to optimize JS/CSS code.  Cons: Could be a bit technical for newbies, though probably the best one to start with.

• CDN Tools: Pros: Takes a different approach by hosting scripts on a CDN. Cons: You may need some technical abilities to customize this plugin to your particular CDN if yours isn’t supported yet.

• JS & CSS Script Optimizer: Pros: Utilizes JavaScript Packer to help minimize the number of HTML requests.  Cons: Technical in nature, but may be exactly what you’re looking for.

Why are there so many things to Optimize on WordPress?   WordPress is easy to customize, but because it is… it can quickly grow too big for itself and need a little pruning.  There isn’t just one way to optimize WordPress because some sites will need more tuning on images, while others may need a bit of work because of numerous database updates, etc..  When it doubt, try them out! (Be sure to backup first!)

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– Mercer

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