Should WordPress themes be hard coded for better SEO?
-
In the interests of making my site faster I have recently come across the suggestion of removing unwanted PHP from my WooThemes WordPress theme. The suggestion is to hard code the choices I have made in the WordPress template to reduce on database calls.
Has anyone actually done this to their WordPress theme before and seen any measurable results?
-
Hey Ben,
Thanks. Am using a Wootheme called Simplicity. I have just left the minify box unchecked in W3 Total Cache since this was causing the problem. The site speed seems to be ok though even with this disabled.
-
Hi Sofia,
Not a problem, glad I can offer my assistance.
What slider are you using? I might be able to solve that problem for you, I know I had to fiddle with the code of my theme a little to make total cache behave but they were minor changes.
-
Ben, thanks for the useful follow up. I will certainly check out spitecow. Have found W3 total cache speeds up my site quite a bit, only problem is its breaks the image slider for some reason so have some looking into to do.
-
To help measure results one way or another you could use http://loads.in to test how long it takes your page to load from different geographical locations. I think Chrome's developer tools has a similar thing as well.
If you're trying to speed up your site then I would recommend grouping images (icons etc) into an image sprite and use css background positioning to show the respective image. I found that implementing this into a theme resulted in great speed increases as you make a single HTTP request for a single image, as opposed to loading up several images on page load.
If you're not savvy enough with css image sprites I would recommend using www.spritecow.com to produce the correct background-positions for the images so you can add them into your css file.
-
I have used WooThemes in the past and personally I think some of their code and their modifications are a bit overkill, sure it makes things easier for users but its not really following the way WordPress does things (Creating folders in WP-Content to put file uploads from their admin panel for example).
In general terms I think its better to hard code references to public resources (CSS Links, JavaScript links etc in header.php). For better speed increases I would suggest having links to JQuery or MooTools in header.php and any other JavaScript files should be put in footer.php just above the closing body tag.
The benefit to this is that the core JavaScript framework (JQuery or MooTools) is loaded first, the page can then render on the screen whilst the last few JS files are downloaded and put to use.
It maty be worth using WP SuperCache or similar to cache your pages and allow browser gzip compression for quicker page loading.
I think WordPress in general makes too many database calls anyway, so where possible I think its acceptable to hard code links.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Acquired domains for SEO
hi there, For one of our insurance websites we acquired a domain, this domain is going to be redirected to our domain. After some research we discovered the domain we've bought also includes other domains which 301 redirect to specific 'insurance products'. These domains are also included in the deal. But what is the best technical solution for redirecting these specific redirected product domains? They already redirect to the product pages of the domain we've bought, so after redirect this domain, the sub (product) redirected domains will also link to us. It would be like this: A) www.sub-carinsurancesite.nl (301) -> www.domain-we-bought.com/car-insurance -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance
Technical SEO | | remkoallertz
B) www.sub-carinsurancesite.nl (301) -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance & www.domain-we-bought.com/car-insurance -> www.ourdomain.com/car-insurance etc0 -
Should we change our URLs for SEO benefit?
Hi, I'm currently covering a maternity marketing role at i-escape and one our main objectives is to increase organic traffic to the website. i-escape has a selection of hand-picked boutique hotels, villas, lodges, guesthouses and apartments for people to discover and book. At the moment each hotel page URL follows this structure: https://www.i-escape.com/hotelname We'd like to change this to include some searchable words in the URL dependent on the type of hotel. For example: https://www.i-escape.com/boutique-hotels/hotelname or https://www.i-escape.com/boutique-apartments/hotelname If we do go ahead, we know we need to make sure all old style URLs canonically redirect to the new style. Is having the keyword in the URL important enough for us to change over 1500 URLs on the website? We have quite a high quality links pointing to these hotel pages URLs. Also, will this help us with navigation/user journeys/crawls as there will be a /boutique-hotels/hotelname rather than just /hotelname? Thanks so much all! Clair
Technical SEO | | iescape0 -
Sitemap Size effect SEO
So I've noticed that the sitemap I use has a capacity of 4500 URLs, but my website is much larger. Is it worth paying for a commercial sitemap that encompasses my entire site? I also notice that of the 4500 URLs which have been submitted, only 104 are indexed. Is this normal, if not, why is the index rate so low?
Technical SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Client with Very Very Bad Onsite SEO
So one of my clients has a really really bad website from the technical perspective. I am talking over 75k in violations and warnings. Granted, the tagging is done well but any other SEO violation you can think of is occurring. In any case, they are building a new website, and I am on a retainer for a couple hours a week to do some link building. I am feeling like I am not getting anywhere. What is your advice? Should I keep on keeping on or advice the client to put SEO on hold until the technical issues are resolved. I feel like all of this link building isn't having the value that it could have with a site like this.
Technical SEO | | runnerkik0 -
SEO Audit - Panda
I am looking for a reputable SEO company to help diagnose Panda issues. I am very familiar with SEO and lead an in-house team so I need more than a basic audit. e.g You need unique content
Technical SEO | | WEB-IRS
e.g. You need to create quality content I am looking for someone with a technical mind to help diagnose. Please reach if you have someone in mind.0 -
How to see a theme ‘/wp-content/themes/’
HI I'm still plugging away at getting to grips with my companies personalized blog. I've been trying for the past two days to upload a theme to my own test Wordpress blog, in order to correct a bug in the companies theme that makes formatting in the Post disappear. The code in the themes CSS file seems to be fine. Anyhow what I assumed would be a simple step has given me hours of hassle. I have finally got to the point of uploading an unzipped version of the theme intot ‘/wp-content/themes/’. Now try as I might my Wordpress admin is completely blind to the fact. Any attempt at using the Upload facility (which is what I attempted many hours ago) fails. There seems to be no place to say, look out there at my directory - a new original theme - unzipped and ready to go. Am I missing something very obvious?
Technical SEO | | catherine-2793880 -
If I redirect my WordPress blog to my main site, will it help my main site's SEO?
I have separate sites for my blog and main website. I'd like to link them in a way that enables the blog to boost my main site's SEO. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks in advance for any advice...
Technical SEO | | matt-145670 -
SEO Friendly Calendar System
Does anyone have a recommendation for a calendar system that is SEO friendly? I have been using Helios Calendar but the current version lacks proper SEO bones (canonical URLs, mini calendar generates links to empty events from 1950 to 2020, 302 re-directs, and it is generating thousands of crawl errors in Google Webmaster Tools. The developer has plans to implement some fixes, and I would rather not rip apart what is currently there to fix core issues. I have found that calendars in general are a nightmare. If anyone has any suggestions, or has experience in tidying up Helios I would be interested. Thanks, Dan
Technical SEO | | DanLaBate0