First of all, let me tell you that this article will help make your blog amazingly fast! Also, I can ensure you that your blog will load elegantly, if my suggestions are followed. I’ll share with you some asynchronous plugins and tools, which will help transform your blog’s loading speed. But before heading to the small list of tips and plugins I’ve assembled, let me describe some vital facts about asynchronous scripts and async loading.
What’s this asynchronous loading thing? Why is it sexy and preferable?
If you are using WordPress CMS for maintaining your kick-ass blog, it can’t be free of scripts. Yes, that social follow plugin, social sharing plugin, e-mail widget, parts of theme- all are scripts.
These scripts are useful. After all, it is due to them that you are getting some awesome features and good productivity out of your blog! But at the same time, these scripts, when executing themselves, consume server resources.
You may be treating these scripts as heroes! But, the harsh truth is that many of these scripts prevent other component of your blog from loading, until they load themselves up! Imagine a lame idiot, driving a big, slow car. He is not allowing other quick cars to overtake him. This makes even the quick cars move slower, because they have no other option, but to follow the idiot!
This same thing happens with your blog! Fat scripts, which load slower than snail, prevents other parts of your blog from loading up fast.
“It’ll take 30 seconds for me to load up. I’ll make sure that no other script loads before me”
-Yours Sincerely,
Slow, fat script
If my little explanation has been effective, I suppose that you might be raring to kill those ‘fat scripts’. But hey, don’t kill them off fellas! They might be freaking productive!
Now, asynchronous loading is different! It makes sure that no script has to wait for others to finish loading! That means, all the scripts will load parallel to each other, at the same time. The fast ones will naturally finish faster, ensuring that your blog gets rendered quickly. The slow fat scripts will take their sweet sexy time to finish loading.
But why bother about the slow ones, when the fast ones just make sure that the main content gets delivered on time?
This is what makes async loading preferable. And I’m gonna tell you how to tackle various components of a blog and make them asynchronous! Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
Here are some asynchronous plugins and tools to transform your blog’s performance-
This plugin is a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for JavaScript files on a blog. I’ve discussed the uses of this amazing plugin a previous post about ‘plugins to increase loading speed of WordPress blog’.
This plugin, upon installing and activating, scans the whole blog. After scanning, it identifies JS files in your blog, which are available in their standard library. If it finds JS files that matches with files existing in their library, you may choose to host those files in their CDN’s servers!
Now, talking about the asynchronous part, using this plugin, you may choose whether to load the JS files asynchronously or not! It is up to you to choose. A great, useful plugin, just like me!
As its name suggests, this plugin makes sure that JavaScript components gets loaded asynchronously.
I’m loved by lazy folks. I love to find solutions to their problems, and make life ridiculously easy for them. I must admit that this plugin will also be loved by them!
Just install it, activate it and forget about it. This plugin will take care of everything else! If you find that it conflicts with certain plugins, just head to the settings of this plugin and exclude the conflicting plugin from the async loading list. It’s that simple!
I use this social sharing plugin on my blog. Not the sexiest one in town, but still, quite good at what it does. It loads asynchronously, unlike most of the other social sharing plugins. This prevents it from negatively affecting the performance of a blog, unlike other social sharing plugins!
But alas, performance and ‘looks’ doesn’t go hand in hand (in this case). But still, the sharing buttons looks decent enough!
#4 CloudFlare CDN’s Rocket Loader feature
Well, this option is available to those, who use CloudFlare CDN. But, hey, you can jump into the CloudFlare bandwagon anytime! It also has a free plan, which basically rocks!
CloudFlare offers many useful features to its users. Rocket Loader is one such amenity. It literally transforms your blog into a rocket!
At its core, Rocket loader is nothing, but an asynchronous loading set up! Basically, it applies the ‘async= true;’ code to the whole blog! Yes, you read it right, the whole freaking blog!
SG Optimizer Plugin for WordPress
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Pictured here: Your blog, after activating CloudFlare’s Rocket Loader!
While this is good, there are chances of it conflicting with some plugins. Cheer-up, you can opt any plugin or script out of Rocket loader’s reach easily!
If you ask me, I’d say that Rocket loader no more conflicts with any plugins! The folks at CloudFlare have fine-tuned this little monster!
I’m using this social following plugin right now! It is productive and at the same time is asynchronous. On the right side bar of my blog, you’ll find this widget in action. Just look how well designed this plugin is. I mean, it satisfies all social following needs of mine!
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