I don’t even know how to decipher the results that I got, all I know is that my webpage loads super slow. Where do I even start? Is there a how to page that I can review to make sense of my results? Thanks.
Do you have a link to your test results?
Here are a few resources to get you started:
http://code.google.com/speed/articles/
If this is all new to you, you should probably read Steve’s first book: http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Web-Sites-Essential/dp/0596529309/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1325600586&sr=8-4
Thanks,
-Pat
Here’s the link: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/120103_XW_2QKMX/
Thanks a million for the resources, I’ll start through them right away.
Ahh, wordpress with bad first-byte performance. You’ll want to look into a server-side caching plugin (W3 Total Cache or Super Cache) or a hosting provider with better database performance.
W3 Total Cache will help with a lot of the other issues as well (merging files, leveraging the browser cache, gzip compression).
You’re probably better off reading the resources first before diving too deep into the optimizing so you understand what they are doing first though.
Just as a motivation help: If W3 Total Cache does take care of Server-Side-Caching, merging the tons of JS and CSS files that load at the beginning, enables GZIP compression and sets far-future Expires-Headers. And you convert your object number 48 from PNG to JPG (When doing this I achieved a size reduction of that file from its current size of 1.3 MByte to 0.05 MByte without much of a visual impact) your site should load well in 3 seconds, compared to its current 19 seconds. Repeat view should come down to something like 1 second.