How Many Widgets Do You Use In WordPress?
I noticed that my blog was loading slow. I have a confession, I really am lazy I noticed it slowing down as soon as I installed the MyBlog Log Widget and google friends widget.
- Image by Jenn and Tony Bot via Flickr
Its to bad, I really liked showing those, but I can tell that my blog is running smoother without them. I imagine if I keep taking stuff off of my sidebar my blog will run smoother. I have been working on improving my blog skills lately. The more research I do online, the more I am thinking I better get the load times down.
Do To Many Widgets Turn People Off?
I really would love to know your opinion on this one. I like to see lots of widgets on someones blog, but I have read that lots of people like the minimalist approach.
What Says You?
What The Hell Is Are Widgets
Widgets are those side thingies over there on the right hand side. They let you add things like your twitter account, facebook account and other social networks into your blog. You can also put rss feeds over there to keep your blog fresh with new content. The only problem is the more you use the slower your blog will load. That is a bad thing. The moral of the story is choose your widgets carefully.
What prompted me to change my sidebars?
Unfortunately I was checking out my Alexa rankings and was very pleased with the growth I am seeing. However I saw this big fat message at the bottom of all my stats.
So I had to make some decisions about what to do about that. The culprit for me were all the plugins and widgets I use on this site. I will keep the face book widget up for a while and I took off some other widgets so in a few weeks I will revisit this issue and see if my speed has improved. I did some testing and it seems to load 2 seconds faster.
So do you like more widgets or less widgets when you visit a blog?
Hey Larry!
I’d have to say I like speed better than all the widgets! Of course I like some! Kimberly Caslteberry showed me how to get the ‘connect with me buttons’ ( I see you have those too) and the greatest one is google friend connect! It doesn’t slow down the site and it lets other people join and get their picture on your site for everyone to see!
~Linda
Ya, that’s what I like about google connects, I am going to add some of them back 1 by 1 and see which ones are dragging me down the most. You convinced me to put up google friends widget again ^_^
I did find This post on speeding up wordpress I found helpful.
Fast is preferable. In my opinion, some widgets are an ABSOLUTE must to facilitate ease for the visitor to Follow, FB or Tweet posts. My wordpress blog HERE loads MUCH faster than my Blogger blog HERE , but I’m thinkin’ it’s because of the Blog Roll..mmmm…maybe I need to dump that one!
Hi Mary Catherine,
Thanks for stopping by. Facebook and twitter seem to be essential widgets on folks blogs.
Great advice, Larry. Must check that out….you learn something new everyday!
Thankyou….just as I was getting the hang of this widget stuff, I now find I have to take some out!
Keep it NPN!
Peter
Hey Peter, ya I have been doing a lot of research lately.. I plan on hooking the peeps up in our downline and upline for that matter.. More on that later.
Thanks for stopping by Always good to hear from ya
Hey Larry,
Great advice, thanks for sharing.
I prefer less widgets. You may want to try w3 plugin to enhance the speed.
Do let us know how you get on.
All the best,
Mavis Nong
Thanks Mavis,
I am using wp super cache, but I am not liking it to much. I will get w3 and give it a go.
Thanks for commenting
Larry, I’m so widget and plugin happy, it’s crazzzzy! lol. I try and keep checking on speed, because speed is a must! If I have to get rid of a plugin or widget or two, I will to keep speed 🙂
Staci
Lols, me too that’s what I think got me in this mess in the first place. I love widgets.
Thanks for commenting
Lots of things can slow a blog down and widgets are certainly amongst them. The problem is sometimes they can be working fine and other times, when they’re having trouble accessing some site or other, they slow everything down. That’s when it comes to making a choice, which is better, the widget or keeping your visitors happy?
Hi Sire,
Ya I think keeping visitors happy is the most important thing to consider. I have 1 blog hosted on hostgator and it runs great. This blog is hosted on 1 and 1 hosting I am wondering if maybe that might be a factor also?
Thanks for dropping in!