Note: You must take backup of your site and database before following this step. Better be safe then sorry.

Here are some tips on how to speed up your WordPress website:

• Shared hosting v/s Dedicated hosting: If you are having more data or higher traffic on your Directory website then instead of shared hosting, we recommend using a dedicated server. Directory is an application like theme and as soon as your site gets traction both content and traffic on your website will increase simultaneously so your website will need more server resources for better performance. If you are on a shared hosting your server resources will be shared with other websites on the same server so you will get limited resources for your website which will ultimately result in an under performing website. On the other hand if you go with a dedicated server all server resources will be available for your website and it will perform much better.
• Remove plugins: Please visit plugins page in your WordPress admin and remove any and all unnecessary plugins which is not really contributing to your site.
• Optimize DB: If your site is more than few months old, you should optimize your site database with plugins like RGV optimize and Simple optimizer or likes that will remove unnecessary junk from your site such as spam comments, post revisions etc. which will make your site database perform better
• Limit post revisions: Most users dont need each version of post revisions. Here is a good article on how to disable or limit it.
• Spam Comments – If your spam comment receipts are in high numbers then all the spam comments should be deleted at the regular interval by just going to wp-admin > Comments >Spam >Empty Spam (button) otherwise you may end up with a compromise in the site speed!
• Lack of Image optimization – It is very important to upload the just perfect sized image & that too with the specific formats like “jpg,png etc”.
• W3 Cache plugin: This will really make your site faster. We highly recommend using this plugin which will cache your site and serve pages really faster.
• Cloud flare: Use cloud flare and it will improvise your site performance further. Its free!
• CDN: Most of the popular sites nowadays use CDN services such as MaxCDN or likes to deliver content from their site (we at templatic use it too)
• Memory Limit: Many times increase in memory limit variable of the php.ini file also helps the user in loading the site faster.
• Better WordPress Minify: It compress and combines CSS and JS scripts on site to improve the page load time. It can be downloaded from here. When this plugin is active, go to its settings > Manage enqueued Files. Select three files mentioned below:
  – google-clustering
  – location_script
  – google-maps-apiscript Select them and choose action “Say at position”. Save the Changes.
• Google page speed: If you really wish to go in detail, Google Page Speed is a very good site analysis tool that will tell you exactly how you can improve your site speed.
• For the error: The following cacheable resources have a short freshness lifetime. Specify an expiration at least one week in the future for the following resources (80997)
  This is the code you need to add in your .htaccess file:
  ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
  <IfModule mod_expires.c>
  ExpiresActive On
  ExpiresByType image/jpg “access plus 1 year”
  ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access plus 1 year”
  ExpiresByType image/gif “access plus 1 year”
  ExpiresByType image/png “access plus 1 year”
  ExpiresByType text/css “access plus 1 month”
  ExpiresByType application/pdf “access plus 1 month”
  ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access plus 1 month”
  ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access plus 1 month”
  ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access plus 1 year”
  ExpiresDefault “access plus 2 days”
  </IfModule>

  ## EXPIRES CACHING ##

The above mentioned reasons are quite in brief just to make you aware with the actual problems, so to have a detailed description & guideline on each of them, please have a look at the below given articles.

1. http://www.eugenoprea.com/increase-wordpress-site-speed/
2. www.socialmediaexaminer.com/improve-the-speed-of-your-wordpress-site/
3. http://www.wpexplorer.com/how-to-speed-up-wordpress/

Hope this helps.

The Listings theme is a very adaptable and powerful CMS system for building profitable online directories. With many great tools under the hood, Listings is the ideal solution for almost any type of online business directory you can think of.

Take a look below at just some of the features and options which make this WordPress listings theme the perfect software for business directories.

Claim listing ownership options
Allow people to claim listings which have been submitted by admin (you). Use this feature to let business owners for example be able to claim and manage the claimed listing.

Once a listing claim has been approved by admin, the listing is automatically assigned to a new username so it can be managed.

AdSense or image banner
Paste your banner code in the ‘Text’ widget to display AdSense banners on your directory. The widget can be used more than once in many locations.

You can also consider using the Ad Manager add-on plugin to have banner rotation, city or category-specific banners.

Frontend Listing submissions
Allow users to submit listings on your directory with the very powerful built-in price package options. The Listings theme can also have submissions disallowed in case you require it to be an only admin submission type of directory.

Create custom price packages to suite your directory
Create single submission packages at a certain price and duration with options to be made featured for an extra amount.

You can also create subscription/membership packages which let you to set a price and number of submissions which can be made using a package. The theme also gives admin the option to offer trial periods packages.

Listings require Admin approval
To give you more control over the submitted content, you can set the default status of submitted listings to draft. Activating this option, makes all submitted listings require admin approval before making it live on your directory.

Admin approval can also be switched off so submitted listings go online. The theme also offers admin independent listing default status options for free or paid listing packages.

Unlimited custom fields
Adapt the amazing Listings theme to match whatever directory you wish to launch. Create unlimited custom fields of various types and you can even make new fields searchable in advanced search.

Decide the field sorting order and its display locations with options for displaying a field on the frontpage and listing categories, detail pages and the submission form.

Create custom listing categories
We understand that no two directories are the same. For this reason, we have designed an easy system to let you create unlimited listing categories and sub-categories to match any type of directory you are planning to build.

You can also assign a particular fields to one or more listing category or a price packages if you like. This option gives you freedom to customize the submission form as it makes it show different fields for different selected categories.

SEO features
Optimize your directory for Google and other search engines with the powerful WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. This is a plugin which is compatible with our theme and works well with it. Use the Yoast plugin to populate all the Meta tag fields like title, description and keywords on your site.

Permalinks customizer
Use the theme’s powerful tool to customize your directory’s urls. The options include removing or changing of default words in the urls such as ‘listing’, ‘listingcategory’ or renaming or removing the word ‘city’. You can also include the city name in the listing category urls if you like.

CSV bulk import/export tool
Use .CSV files to import listings or cities to your directory from your previous directory website for example. The .CSV imports/export also works with newly created post types. You can also import/export cities to and from your website.

Custom submission form
The theme’s submission form can be easily configured to be exactly how you want it. Choose which fields are to appear on the listing submission form. You can also choose a field’s sorting order on the form and also decide if fields appear for all categories or just particular ones, the choice is yours.

Translatable and RTL support
The Listings theme is very easy to translate into any language. Use the included .PO files to translate this theme and build a directory in any language.

Not only can you translate Listings, it also supports RTL (right-to-left) languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Urdu. Switching the language direction is simply done with a click of a button from theme settings.

The ideal theme for city directories
A very powerful business listings directory theme for 1 city or for thousands of cities, the choice is yours. Once you’ve configured the locations, your users can select from the menu to see only listings from there chosen location.

Different location selectors
The theme’s location manager lets you choose the method users can choose locations from the top of the site. Choose between showing country -> state -> city where you are using it for more than one country. You can also choose to show it as state -> city or only allowing cities to be selected.

Listings rating and reviews
Allow people to leave reviews under listings on your directory. As well as this, visitors can also rate each listing with a star rating of between 1-5. The rating option can also b switched off if you prefer not to display the rating system.