My site is running slow, what can I do?

Before blaming the theme there are a number of things that may be causing your site to slow down. 

First ask yourself, does this issue occur when you are using any other theme? If it does, then it's probably a server or plugin issue. If it's a plugin issue, disable all plugins and reactivate them one by one to find which one(s) are causing the slow down. If it's a server problem then you should contact your web host.

If this issue only occurs when using this theme there are a number of things you can do to improve the pagespeed, as follows:

Install a cache

This is an absolute must. If you're not already using a caching plugin and you're complaining about page speed install a caching plugin immediately! I recommend WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.

Optimize images

Optimizing your images reduces their file size without losing picture quality. You can either use a program that does this before uploading your images to your server (such as ImageOptim for the Mac) or you can use a WordPress plugin that does this after uploading your images.

Minify JavaScript and CSS files

Minifying your JavaScript and CSS files basically makes these files as small as possible so they load quicker. There are plenty of plugins out there that minify these files, I recommend Better WordPress Minify.

Remove Query Strings from Static Resources

Use the following Remove Query Strings From Static Resources plugin to remove query strings from static resources like CSS & JS files, to improve your speed scores in services like PageSpeed, YSlow, Pingdom and GTmetrix. Resources with a “?” or “&” in the URL are not cached by some proxy caching servers, and moving the query string and encode the parameters into the URL will increase your WordPress site performance.

Use a VPS or dedicated server

If you are hosted on a shared server you should really consider moving to a VPS or dedicated server. A shared server distributes the server resources across many sites leading to a noticeable slow down when sites on the server have a lot of visitors. If your own site is getting a decent number of visitors you should definitely not be using a shared server. With VPS and dedicated servers you have your own server resources that are not used by any other sites.

Use a CDN to load media, CSS and JavaScript files

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) works by providing alternative server nodes for users to download your files. These nodes are spread throughout the world, therefore being geographically closer to your users, ensuring a faster response and download time of content due to reduced latency. Some of the most popular CDNs are Amazon S3, Microsoft Windows Azure and MaxCDN.

For Gauge users also check out the following video from a fellow buyer:

If you're hosted on a VPS/dedicated server, installed a cache, optimized your images and minified your files and still experience page speed issues then I will need some more information from you in order to determine the cause of this issue.

1) Run your site through http://tools.pingdom.com/ and provide me with the link to the results page.

2) Provide me with WordPress admin access (URL, username and password).