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WordPress is often notorious for creating slow websites due to plugin bloat and out of control images.
But let's be honest...
Whether you're a blogger, online course creator, coach or affiliate marketer — you must ensure your site loads fast if you want to run a successful business in 2020 and beyond.
That's exactly why we built the Site Speed Optimization Panel inside Thrive Theme Builder so you can achieve the 80/20 of site speed performance — in just a couple of clicks.
Watch the video to learn how quick and easy it now is to get blazing fast site speeds for your website using Thrive Theme Builder's new Site Speed Optimization features...
More...
Site Speed Optimization Panel (01:48)
If you read Brad's recent 12 Mega Updates at Thrive Themes post, then you already know the latest version of Thrive Theme Builder now includes a Site Speed Panel within your TTB dashboard:
Click on the Site Speed tab within the Thrive Theme Builder dashboard to find the different performance items available.
In fact, Shane's recent Conversion Focused Website from Scratch video shows how to apply all the Site Speed Optimization features in the context of setting up a brand new WordPress website — in less than an hour using nothing but Thrive Theme Builder.
But here's a deeper dive into all of the Site Speed Panel features...
When you click on the Site Speed tab, a panel of 3 optimization options appears:
- Minification and Caching
- Image Optimization
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) — currently in Beta
Let's now take a look at each one.
Feature #1: Minification & Caching (02:40)
We've integrated both the WP Fastest Cache and W3 Total Cache plugins into Thrive Theme Builder's Site Speed Optimization Panel.
To get started, simply choose the caching plugin you'd like to use and click the Install Now button. The button will then change to say Activate... press it.
Finally, the button will say Configure for Optimal Caching with Thrive. Press it and confirm the warning that this action will overwrite any previous cache settings you may have set.
Click on the Minification and Caching tab to install, activate and configure either the W3 Total Cache or WP Fastest Cache plugin on your website. It's that simple!
That's it! After those 4 quick clicks, a green Configured box will appear showing you that your WordPress caching plugin is now set for optimal performance with your Thrive Themes tools.
If you make any manual changes to you caching plugin, simply click the blue revert button within the Minification and Caching options to return to the Thrive Themes optimal caching settings once again.
Feature #2: Image Optimization (05:21)
Image optimization is one of the most important properties your website MUST have if you want it to load fast for your visitors.
Nothing is worse for site speed performance than a massive image file struggling to load because its dimensions and file size are out of control...
However, Thrive Theme Builder's Site Speed Panel now has native integrations with both Optimole and Smush to make image optimization stupid simple for you:
To select the Optimole image optimization integration, navigate to the Image Optimization tab and select the Fully Automated sub-tab. Then click on the Install Now button to begin the integration process. Note that Optimole is a Freemium service, but the Fully Automated one we recommend.
Fully Automated Optimole Integration (06:46)
If you want to go with the Fully Automated Optimole option, click on the Install Now button and it will be installed and activated for you.
After that's done, the screen will change to help you register with Optimole and get an API to complete the integration.
Note that Optimole is a Freemium service where image optimization is free until your site achieves 5,000 hits per month. After that, you'll have to upgrade to one of their Pro pricing options.
No Cost Smush Integration (08:43)
On the other hand, the Smush integration is free:
To select the Smush image optimization integration, navigate to the Image Optimization tab and select the No Cost sub-tab. Then click on the Install Now button to one-click install, activate and configure this free plugin option.
Just click on the Install Now button and installation, activation and configuration will happen in a single click.
Switching Your Image Optimization Integration Option
If you want to switch your image optimization integration at any time, just deactivate either the Optimole or Smush plugin you first integrated and then follow the installation, activation and configuration steps described above for the other plugin.
Feature #3: Accelerated Mobile Pages — AMP Beta (09:14)
That's right, we've added an Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Beta feature to the Thrive Theme Builder Site Speed Optimization Panel:
Click on the Accelerated Mobile Pages tab to access the AMP Beta feature. Click on the Enable AMP toggle button to enable AMP on your site as well as configure your AMP options. Click the "Click here to learn more about AMP" link to see if AMP is right for your website.
But is AMP right for your website?
Make sure to click on the "Click here to learn more about AMP" link at the top of the AMP feature panel to watch a video by Shane to learn all about the pros and cons of Accelerated Mobile Pages.
And remember — this is still a Beta feature so please deploy it responsibly!
Why Your WordPress Host MATTERS for Great Site Speed Performance (11:31)
Finally, it's important to note that your website's hosting service is one of the most important factors when it comes to site speed performance. That's because no plugin, service integration or tool configuration settings can overcome bad hosting.
If you're interested to learn more about different WordPress hosting services and how they compare after extensive testing, check out this no-holds-bar WordPress hosting review we published over on Shane's ActiveGrowth website.
You'll see we recommend WPX Hosting as our preferred WordPress hosting service for a reason.
Make Your Site Blazing Fast with Thrive Theme Builder
So that's a quick look at the new Site Speed Optimization Panel now available in Thrive Theme Builder!
If you're a Thrive Themes customer, who's had Thrive Theme Builder running on your website for a while now, make sure to update to the latest version of the theme to get instant access to these Site Speed Panel features.
Get instant access to Thrive Theme Builer and all of our amazing conversion-focused plugins when you purchase Thrive Suite.
And if you have any questions or thoughts about the new Site Speed Optimization features, leave us a comment below!
Very helpful and very well explained. Thanking you. I will check all the plugins out.
Is image optimization to .webp format anywhere in the plans? 😉
Hi Danielius,
Happy to tell you that Optimole already supports .webP (https://docs.optimole.com/article/1068-how-optimole-can-serve-webp-images) So if you use the Optimole optimization, you’re good to go.
And they even support Gif to animated Webp as well as MP4 ==>
For mp4, there a bit more detailed doc here https://docs.optimole.com/article/1171-gif-to-video-conversion
I noticed that when I used the automatic config option in TTB it disabled the animated GIF to Webp/MP4 as well as the “Enable network based optimizations” in OptiMole. Is there a reason for that, like it’s better optimized to work with Thrive products that way? Are there pros and cons that you are aware of why one might not use those options?
Hi Matt,
The Optimole settings are for image optimization and won’t interfere how the Thrive Products work (this is more a concern for the caching and minification). Optimole automatically optimizes images and shows it in the right and fastest format to users. This means for GIFs that they are shown in webp when possible (because it’s a more optimized format). If you want to change Optimole settings, you can ask them for help (we simply integrate but don’t change any of the settings).
Thanks for the reply Hanne. I’ll look at those settings and reach out to Optimole if I have more questions.
Would be great if the Woocommerce support will also be there in TTB, can now still not use this on the mainsites
Hi Remco,
We’re targeting end of May (so a little more patience please 🙂 ) I’ve seen the implementation and it’s looking really nice.
You guys are amazing
I feel like I might need a little more clarification. If I understand this correctly, this isn’t a means of reducing plugins utilizing “baked in” features of TTB?
For example, I have SG Optimizer and Cloudflare for 95% of my site speed needs (caching, etc). I also have WP Optimize for handling databases and optimizing images.
If I use the TTB’s methods, all I’m doing is swapping plugin for plugin, right? As in, I could eliminate WP Optimize, but I’d just be replacing it with Smush (and lose the database cleaning feature in WPO)?
That’s right Justin. If you are happy with your current setup, no need to change! This is for users who start from scratch and don’t want to bother doing research or figuring out the best combination of plugins and tools, we did the heavy lifting on that.
Hi,
Excelent explanation 🙂
I was wondering what is the optimal size for images across my website in order to keep them with a good resolution (no pixalation issues)?
<500 kb 100 kb??
Look forward to hearing from you,
Carlos
Hi Carlos,
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to that.
In general, you will get pixelated pictures when you add a small picture (eg 500 px large) and blow it up to a background image (that’s shown at 1200 px for example)
It has very little to do with the number of kb.
But the huge advantage is that if you activate Optimole on your site, you can simply add a large enough image and even if you use it in a smaller size, it will be shown at the right size to your visitors.
This is great. I use Swift Performance plugin for caching and optimization.
1. Will this work with that or only FastestCache and W3?
2. What is the advantage of having these cache plugins with Thrive Builder vs what I am using Swift Performance plugin?
Thanks.
Nagui
Hi Nagui,
The advantage is that we thoroughly tested these tools and they came up on top. But if you are happy with the solution you currently have, you can keep that solution.
Excellent Optimization tools but only for TTB, you see the determining focus and what happened to the Architect is staying, I understand that you want to monetize your products?
Hi Manu,
I can assure you that we are working really hard on adding features to Thrive Architect too. This update is a good example of that… Now that being said, speed optimization is something that you do on theme level and Thrive Architect can work with any theme so logically, this is a Thrive Theme Builder option.
apart from using caching plugin, do you still recomend using CDN service such as cloudflare?
@hanne can you please integrate with ShortPixel and WP Rocket? Seems that a lot of Thrive users want this too
Yes, it will be great! I used from years ShortPixel and WP Rocket on all my blogs and they are amazing. Please, try to integrate these plugins with your Thrive Theme Builder. Thanks!
Thank you for the wonderful work you folks are doing. I run your products on all my sites.
Now – after months of testing – I’ve made the decision to move my sites to LiteSpeedWebServers and use LiteSpeed-Cache for performance tuning. The sites run amazingly faster than ever before.
Yet if I activate CSS Minify the pages created by Architect do not display properly. For example a page that has a content box overlapping a previous background will instead move behind the previous background section.
I hope you consider LiteSpeed-Cache as an additional option for us out of the “box” users.
Thanks for the suggestion