I was checking out the Site Performance for my blog in Google Webmaster Tools (Google Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance) a couple weeks ago, and I was horrified to see that it was taking 6.5 seconds to load on a good day, and upwards of 10 seconds on other days.

On the day I looked, my site was loading slower than 87% of sites. Not only was this a concern to me, since visitors were having a bad experience, but also Google doesn’t like it.

That’s right, a few weeks ago Google announced that speed matters.

I needed to fix this and fast.

I’d been thinking of switching over to the Thesis theme for my blog, since it’s strong on SEO. So, I touched base with the Chris Pearson (the guy behind Thesis) about people who could customize it for me.

I wanted to keep the general look of my blog, but have Thesis as the backend. He recommended Matt Gross of Thesis Tutor, and Matt got right on my blog and worked his magic.

So now, when you visit my affiliate marketing blog, you’ll have a better experience, the Googlebot will smile, and all will be well in the world.

I just ran the Pingdom Tools – Full page test and my blog loaded in a quick 1.4 seconds.

Thanks Chris and Matt!