The main problem with the existing .htaccess file is that the RewriteCond directives checks the existence of a file on disk when it is not really required. Each access to disk increase the page loading time.

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Currently the wordpress .htaccess is not optimized at all. In a post on Webmaster World, Jim Morgan who is a Mod_Rewrite/.htaccess guru, suggest replacing the existing .htaccess with a more efficient one:

# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine on
#
# Unless you have set a different RewriteBase preceding this
# point, you may delete or comment-out the following
# RewriteBase directive:
RewriteBase /
#
# if this request is for "/" or has already been rewritten to WP
RewriteCond $1 ^(index\.php)?$ [OR]
# or if request is for image, css, or js file
RewriteCond $1 \.(gif|jpg|css|js|ico)$ [NC,OR]
# or if URL resolves to existing file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
# or if URL resolves to existing directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
# then skip the rewrite to WP
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ - [S=1]
# else rewrite the request to WP
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
#
# END wordpress

Here are the optimizations the previous code implements:
it is useless to check the existence of index.php, because it is there. This will avoid useless file checkings for requests to example.com, example.com/ or example.com/index.php.
each request to static instances is not really required to be redirected. If the file is on disk it will be served otherwise an file not found or default subdirectory index.php file will be returned. This would include all the .jpg,.png,.gif,.css,.js and other static files. Since most of the blogs contains lots of static file this would have a huge impact.

Source: http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic.php?id=3524

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1. Simple Server Side Measurements.

Just calculate the page generation time on the fly. Inside your code you can record the time when the script begins and when it ends its execution for a http request. This incredible simple method can warn you if the code has some optimization leaks.

2.The main file loading speed.

You can measure in how much time the main file (.html, .php, …) is loaded. This simple metric can be measured by writing a simple http client which connects and load the file. Online tools are available here and here. You have to keep in mind that the loading time depends on the location of the client and on the location of the server.

3.Loading Time of all the files without running javascript.

A webpage is not properly loaded until the css file are not loaded. That’s why this measurement is closer to what happens when a human user opens the page. You can use this link to get the page loading speed.

4.Loading Time including Javascript Widgets

Most of the webpages contains external “widgets” wrote in javascript. Those widgets are loaded through javascript, either when they are encountered in the page, either after the page is loaded. The most known examples of such widgets are google adsense and google analytics. Every external widget will increase the page loading time so it would be good to know how much. For this purpose 2 firefox addons were created: YSlow(created by Yahoo) and Page Speed(create by Google). Both of them requred another firefox addon to run: Firebug.

Those 2 addons not only offer good metrics but they also offer good tips for improving in the tested page. Probably those are the best to use if you want to optimize a website.

5. Testing the page loading for high traffic.

A fast hosting is not always enough. You should check how your site respond when the page is requested by many users simultaneously. You can use LoadImpact online tool to check how the website will stand to a high traffic. If you read about digg effect you know that a high traffic volume can slow and even crash a server. Using the free version of this tool you can check how the website acts for 10 – 50 clients opening simultaneously a page. Using the paid version you can check up to 5000 clients. A fast hosting should be tested in this harsh conditions.

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If you use the classic PHP Hosting like most of the people, you can enable it in Apache modifying the .htaccess file. The changes are pretty simple:

<FilesMatch "\.(ico|pdf|flv|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
</FilesMatch>

The above code instructs the browser to write the cache information in http header for specified file extensions. The browser will parse it and it will know that the file expires in 30 days(2592000). It will store in its cache and for the next 30 days will use the cached version.

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When a webpage is loaded the browser loads the main page file(.html, .php,…) and then it starts loading the files referenced by it: css files, js files, images,… The more requests are required, the longer it takes to load the page. There is also a limit for most of the browsers with the files that are loaded simultaneously from the same domain. Firefox can load only 2 simultaneously from the same domain.

Most of the time when a page is loaded it takes only a short time to load the actual page file. This represents for most of the pages 5%-20% of the total loading time. The rest is wasted on loading css, js, images or other types of files. In order improve the loading speed of a page you have decrease the number of requests done when a page is loaded.

Join .css and .js files – first of all you have to join all the js files under a single one and to do the same with the css files. In practice it happens to have the css and js split in several files.
Use css sprites and join the images which are used in multiple pages. Css sprites represents a technique which consist in joining multiple images under a single one, and use css to display in the right spot in the browser only the cropped version which represents the original image.

Distribute Static Content on Multiple Servers

In practice is almost impossible to put all the content in singular files. When you deal with multiple files that can not joined, you can distribute them on different servers. For example the css and js file will be loaded from static1.domain.com, some of the images will be loaded from static2.domain.com and other set of images from static3.domain.com.

The method of distributing static content on several servers has the advantage of providing the browser the option to load simultaneously the more than 2 files. The drawback is the fact that the browser should make more dns lookups to retrieve the ip addresses of the servers where the content is distributed. However, the benefits of this method are much better than the drawbacks.

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• Backlinks. Backlinks is the term used to describe links that are incoming to a particular website. When a particular website has a higher number of incoming backlinks for specific keywords, it will be viewed as more relevant and important for those keywords by Google. Building backlinks is the key to building a good reputation for Google and online users. That is the simple explanation, and there are many more factors. The days of buying links to your page will definitely not work, and there is no way getting around good content to build authority for your website.
• Content and Blogs. The idea of a good blog is to provide good advice and share you expert knowledge with internet users. At the end of the day, the professionals who do this will be viewed as the best, whether it is by Google or not. At the same time, because of such high competition, companies are forced to put out content and place it around the internet. Since the Panda Update, the best option is to put that content online on sites that specialise in a particular relative topic. When those sites feel that content is appropriate or good enough, they will want to post it, backlinks included.
• Reading Content. This is where it gets tricky. When you are reading an article, the writer may be skilful enough to make you believe the content is genuine, and yet it is essentially a sales piece. This is the art of SEO writing, not just in terms of Google, but also in terms of writing for people. I am in this business, and I am impressed at how some articles and other content I read, actually just lead me to a sales pitch, after I was convinced.
• Decisions to Make. This is where we need to stop and think. Is the article genuine, and the content genuine, and it is backlinked to the appropriate site because of that, or is the article a genuine con, and it is backlinked to the appropriate site because of that? Useless articles that do not inform, or at least generate some debate will not work in terms of SEO anymore.

So admittedly, this article is written by someone who is involved in SEO (search engine optimisation). Do you think it is a con, or do you think it is genuine advice for you as a user to read between the lines when reading information on the internet? In this case, advice on how to analyse the intention of content you are reading on the internet.

Author Bio: Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including SEO and search engine optimization.

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There are actually two stages involved in the new content requirements:

1. Search engine capabilities: The big search engines have done the internet a massive favor in upgrading their capabilities and getting rid of the horrendous spam-tagging which made searches so much fun for users. This has been a revolution, and a successful one. Businesses and website owners generally are now getting much higher values from searches, and the results are showing up in hard dollars.
2. Content control: The new regime in web content is delivering much better focus for websites. Searching content has achieved a lot, very quickly. This is essentially targeting, reducing the “garbage factor” which has been such a big turnoff for so long and sending searchers to sites they want, not just any old thing using tags. Blogs have been major beneficiaries of this approach.

Content and the market- Discretion is the better part of web hits stats

The internet is a market where anything can be a hit or a miss on the basis of a single click. Internet users are extremely picky, and what they’re prepared to use their time to do is the main issue affecting content. It’s an interesting point that even the time honored, if occasionally despised, “all pictures” approach to web content often doesn’t work.

Content really does mean commitment, and website owners generally are rapidly getting the message that if they want hits, they have to provide:

• Information value- News, in effect.
• Depth- More can be very much better in terms of content.
• Quality values- Happy snaps and gossip are definitely not in demand. Users want values which give them something, not babble.
• Fun- Boredom is not an option. It’s a form of slow suicide. Fun blends in with the other quality controls, and it’s expected in some form. Whether you have a comedian for a commentator or a lot of insider jokes for techs, “humanization” is the key to quality values in this area.

Blogs – internet canaries strike back

The toughest overall market online for content are blogs, where interest levels are truly critical. The blog owners, being naturally sensitive to quality issues, have been demanding- and getting- better standards of materials for some time, and it’s been paying off. Blogs often outsource and use guest posts, a positioning strategy in marketing terms, and they’ve been going from strength to strength with the new quality approach.

The moral of the story is “Quality or Death”. Quality has also been helping the blogs’ SEO values enormously, improving rankings through the new search capacities. The rest of the net is following the blogs, and the net is a better place as a result.

Author Bio: Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including SEO and search engine optimization.

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There are several websites that invite ‘guest bloggers’ to submit blogs that will then become generally accessible.  That’s fine, but if you are going to take the time to create the blog and post it on the guest bloggers’ website, you should be doing that for a specific purpose, other than the satisfaction of seeing your creation on the internet.  Typical goals would be to generate free publicity and/or traffic for a website or to identify yourself as an authority on a specific topic.  You may have a long term goal in mind that your blog should become a source of income, presumably through advertising. For a successful venture of that type, the blog would have to become a truly authoritative source of information that would attract a large audience and that would justify the cost of the advertising to the sponsors.

Your blog should always include a page that identifies you and describes who you are and you should make sure that the page is easy to find.  Link back to previous blogs you have written, or otherwise reference some other content that you have created.  Quality guest blogs are trusted resources, especially those posted on the more well known blog sites.  If you specialize in a very specific subject area, make sure that the site you select has a focus on that area, that you speak with an authoritative voice, and that your writing is original.  Make sure that the tone of your blog is compatible with other postings and appropriate for your topic, having the right balance between formal and informal.  Carefully proofread your copy.  Check sentence structure as well as spelling, especially if you are not writing in your native language.  Thoroughly check your facts before posting the article.  Reference the sources of your information by linking to them.  If the topic you are discussing is at all controversial, be absolutely certain that your information is correct.  Once your article is live, your real work is just beginning.  You should be active in replying to readers’ comments and maintaining the pace of the discussion.  Be ready to follow up with another posting.

Assess the response to your article in terms of traffic generated, comments, etc., and determine if the article met your goals. If you are not entirely happy with it, decide how it could be improved, then be sure that your next article meets your expectations.

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• Google Places. Google’s places listings are growing at exponential rates. Any business must have their business listed in Google Places. Google Places can mean any business can come up the top of any search, especially when a search is specific for a locality.
• Maps. No-one could have known how important Google Maps would have become. As more geolocation influences search and the way applications work, Google Maps continues to be extremely important. The important foundation of Google places continues to show greater details and include more detailed features that can be exploited by any marketing specialist. Google will deepen its relationships with location-based services. Staying abreast of the developments is essential for any professional marketer.
• Social. The rapid growth of Facebook has been, and continues to be, a huge issue for Google. It is fair enough to say the social media giant is Google’s only real competitor. Google is including social media interactivity in its search results, but this is to the exclusion of Facebook. What this means, if your friends and friend’s friends have used Twitter and other social media, and you happen to search on a similar topic, those relationships will influence the Google search result. For these tools to have effect, users must be connected through Gmail and Google Profiles. At the same time, we do not see anything as radically social as Facebook. Google says it is researching this issue, and so we can expect changes in the very near future. +1 is the latest application of which Google is showing the greatest amount of interest in. Social integration into the way Google works, and how we get search engine results, will most probably radically change further in the very near future. To give you some idea of how important this is inside Google operations, you should know that Google’s employee bonuses have been based on social media, in that they can expect bonuses if they succeed, and have salaries docked if they fail.

The last 12 months have seen some huge changes in Google that have really changed the game for many businesses and search engine optimization professionals. Google’s changes have even caused some businesses to go broke. Staying ahead of those changes has become more important than ever. More than just taking advantage of those changes, it is imperative you can survive them.

Author Bio: Tom Mallet is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including SEO and Search Engine Optimization.

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The real drivers for blogs are interest levels. If you check out some of the most popular blogs online, you’ll notice a pattern:

Lots of new material, all the time.

• High quality blog materials.
• Unique materials.
• Various areas where user participation is actively encouraged.

The absolute bottom line here is the conversion rate for the blog. The conversion rate is essentially a functional measure of resulting business from clicks on the site’s ads and another materials. Conversion rates can vary from highly effective to absolutely appalling.

A very simple example –If a blog is selling books, the important conversion rates for the blogger would be book sales, followed by revenue generated by clicks on ads. As any writer can tell you, the only way to sell books is to generate interest in books. A good conversion rate is therefore a measure of success or failure of the book.

The passive income from the ads is another measure, and it’s also a very good indicator of the effectiveness of both the ads and the blog. Everybody who owns a website has had some sort of problems with ad content. Ads are double-edged assets. The wrong ads can be absolutely useless, and more to the point also a waste of space which could be devoted to ads that do generate revenue.

There are several ways to generate improved conversion rates:

Use the forum as a vehicle to attract interest to the blog’s conversion issues. This means using new materials and better materials as selling points. It’s also extremely useful in getting feedback from forum users. If there are any flaws or problems with content, materials and ads, the forum will find them.

Improved materials and better management of search engine optimization. This approach will also help considerably over time. One of the most common problems for blogs is the “scattergun” subject matter. This effectively dilutes search engine results, because it reduces the relevance of the blog to the search.

Better linking practices. Many blogs also sabotage themselves simply because their links are anywhere and everywhere. This is exactly the same thing as the multiple subject problems. Targeting your links within a well-defined bandwidth makes life a lot easier for search engines, and will get you a lot more hits.

Separate blogs. If you’re actually running a blog which has multiple subjects and you want to continue with these subjects, it’s a good idea to create separate blogs for them. This removes a lot of the search issues, and will also attract core users to their preferred subjects.

Most importantly – Ensure the quality of your materials is of a very high standard. This is the best way to attract the most interested users. In marketing courses, these users are called “core market demographics”, and they’re the best audience in the world. If you can attract these people to your blog, you’ll never need to worry again about your conversion rates.

Author Bio: Tim Millett is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including business school.

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Fortunately there are some simple solutions you could follow:

• Enable WP Built-in Object Cache – WordPress comes with an option that is disabled by default to cache all the results of database queries locally. The simple activation of this feature could have dramatically improvements on the performance. In order to activate it you have to add the following line to the wp-config.php file in directory where wordpress  was installed:

      define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);

• Install WP Super Cache Plugin. This is the de facto plugin used by 90% of the wordpress optimized websties. It writes the generated pages locally to be served at later requests. It knows when to re-generate each page in the cache if new comments are published or other changes are done.
• Don’t install lots of plugins just because they look good. Each new plugin will store and retrieve some parameters directly from the database. If you have PHP experience it’s a good idea to inspect each plugin which is not very popular and reviewed by other people to see how it uses the database. You should avoid plugins that modifies wordpress queries by adding JOIN clauses or ORDER BY to columns without indexes.

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