Is your site fast enough?
Simply Static - use Wordpress with a perfect speed and score
Table of Content
1. Problem
2. Analysis
3. Check your Speed
4. Solution
5. Simply Static
Problem
When I’m judging my website from a technical point of view, I’m trying to check few checkboxes.
Speed. Not only browsing will be delightful, but first impression matters and visitors will see that is well crafted. In the same time, they will wonder what’s special about this website and how come is that fast.
Multilingual. I like to have multilingual websites, to cover larger audiences and boost my SEO in the same time. Problem is that multilingual solutions are hitting the web server and database server pretty hard.
Solve the optimization constraints. Wordpress optimization is very complicated with tons of demands:
- server needs higher specs and this will only grow with time and db size 😅
- caching: Page Caching, Database Query Caching, Object Caching, Opcode Caching, Mobile Caching, User Caching, Edge Caching (CDNs)
- plugins over plugins for multilingual, forms, site caching, server caching
- On average, a typical business website powered by WordPress usually has around 20 to 30 plugins installed. However, if your website utilizes advanced features and functionalities, this count can easily exceed 50 plugins1.
- content delivery network (Cloudflare, BunnyCDN)
- security
Analysis
A solution will be to to throw money at the problem and the problem will be solved (pr patched).
If you are very good, you can solve all this with a hosting similar to Gridpane (look at their Core plan, which is free) and a High Performance server from Vultr (get $100 with this link) server vCPU/s: 2 vCPUs; RAM: 4 GB; Storage: 128 GB NVMe.
You can also go with the Panel version, that includes 50 Sites, Unlimited Servers and split the bill with 2-3 friends or clients.
Anyway … I’m digressing. The point is that you don’t need high performance configuration or specs, nor to pay around $1000 for an optimization service, if you serve a static version of your website.
Check your speed
A good speed is under 1s, a very good will be around 0.5s but ideally around 0.25s
With Google PageSpeed Insights or Pingdom Tools you can check your site speed separately on mobile and desktop. It’s really easy to use.
If you convert your WordPress site to a static website, the content will be delivered to the user directly from the server. Static sites eliminate round trips to the database to generate a web page, significantly reducing page loading time. Php server side processing is also eliminated.
Improve your site security
For your Wordpress site, security enhancements are a must and Wordfence provides robust security measures, including a Web Application Firewall (WAF), malware scanning, and login security.
It helps protect your WordPress site from threats, unauthorized access, and malicious code.
Personally, I don’t use Wordfence, as it’s putting additional and unnecessary stress on the server and you can manually solve them without Wordfence2.
Static websites
Instead of hitting the php processor and the database, you build your static version of your website once and then it’s served from an Edge Caching content delivery server that’s next to your visitor. BunnyCDN has 123 global PoPs (points of presence).
Static websites are also more secure because they have fewer entry points of attacks, thanks to the fact they aren’t connected to a database. There is no database for hackers to attack, for example, via SQL injection.
Simply Static
I know Patrick Posner, the owner of Simply Static for about 4 years now, while the software itself is around since 2015.
You cans see the product roadmap here.
Key points:
Can be hosted on the same website in a local directory.
Automated deployments thru webhooks
Pair it with BunnyCDN, 1 storage zone per website
Integrations: Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel, SimplyCDN, Amazon S3, GitHub, BunnyCDN, WordPress
Support: Multilingual, Multisite, Forms, Comments, Search
Why to skip it: if you're not a technical person, don’t go for it.
Simply Static won’t work with Woocommerce. Anyway, it’s better to separate the company website from the e-com side of it.
This can be transparent for the public, if you keep the same layout and navigation - only you will know that in fact you are running two instances of Wordpress.
Why to buy: Speed, optimization, security, save money.
Even if you don’t plan to implement it right now, buy it now and use it later, since this is a one time payment of $59, instead of $99 yearly.
I think the deal will be up until April 9 and you will have 60 days to refund it, in case you don’t like it.
Gridpane has 6G and 7G Web Application Firewalls
A small note here is that well crafted plugins won’t affect the site performance.