How to Make Your Website Load Faster: A Beginner’s Guide

Have you ever clicked a website and waited several seconds for the page to appear?

You probably did not wait very long.

You may have closed the tab, pressed the back button, or moved to another website instead. This is exactly what happens when a website takes too long to load. Even if the information on the page is excellent, a slow website can make visitors leave before they get a chance to read it.

A slow website can also make browsing frustrating, especially for people using mobile phones or slower internet connections.

The good news is that you do not always need expensive software or advanced coding skills to improve website speed. Many common speed problems can be fixed by optimizing images, using caching, choosing suitable hosting, reducing unnecessary plugins and scripts, and delivering your website efficiently to visitors.

In this guide, we will go step by step through how to make your website load faster, even if you are a beginner.

We will also look at how to test your website speed, understand Core Web Vitals, identify the biggest problems, and decide which improvements are actually worth making.

What Does Website Loading Speed Actually Mean?

Website loading speed simply refers to how quickly a web page becomes usable for a visitor.

However, it is not as simple as saying:

“My website loads in three seconds.”

A web page does not suddenly become completely loaded at one particular moment. Different parts of the page arrive and become usable at different times.

For example, when you open a blog post, your browser may first receive the basic HTML. Then it may load the page’s CSS, images, fonts, JavaScript and other resources.

You might see the article title and some text while other parts of the page are still loading.

This is why modern website performance is measured using several different metrics rather than one simple loading-time number.

Why Website Speed Matters

Website speed matters for three main reasons: visitors, conversions and search performance.

1. Visitors expect a responsive website

Imagine that someone searches Google for:

“How to start a blog?”

They click your result, but your website takes several seconds before the main content appears.

The visitor may simply go back to Google and choose another result.

A faster website gives visitors a better chance of staying, reading your content and visiting another page.

2. Speed can affect conversions

Website speed becomes even more important when your website makes money.

For example, imagine you have a website that recommends web hosting services.

A visitor reads your article and decides to check a hosting offer. But if the page takes too long to load, the visitor may leave before clicking your affiliate link.

The same principle applies to:

• Affiliate websites
• Online stores
• Service websites
• Course websites
• Business websites
• Blogs
• Membership websites

A small improvement in the user experience can therefore be valuable.

3. Website performance is part of the overall page experience

Google recommends paying attention to Core Web Vitals and overall page experience. However, there is no single “page experience” ranking signal that determines where a page appears in Google Search. Google considers multiple signals and recommends focusing on providing a good experience for visitors rather than trying to optimize for one number.

So you should not think about website speed only as an SEO trick.

Build a faster website primarily for your visitors.

Better search performance can be a useful result, but it should not be the only reason you optimize your site.

How Fast Should Your Website Be?

There is no universal rule that says every website must load completely in exactly two or three seconds.

What matters is how quickly the important content becomes available and how smoothly the page responds to the visitor.

Google’s Core Web Vitals currently focus on three important areas:

These metrics look at different parts of the user experience. LCP focuses on loading performance, INP focuses on responsiveness, and CLS focuses on visual stability.

You do not need to become a web performance expert to understand them.

Think about them like this:

LCP:
“Can I see the main thing I came here for?”

INP:
“When I click or interact with something, does the website respond properly?”

CLS:
“Does the page stay in place, or do things suddenly jump around while loading?”

A website can have a good-looking PageSpeed score and still feel frustrating to use. Likewise, chasing a perfect score can sometimes lead to unnecessary changes that provide little real-world benefit.

The goal should be a fast, stable and usable website.

Step 1: Test Your Website Before Changing Anything

This is one of the most important steps.

Before installing a caching plugin, changing your hosting plan or compressing hundreds of images, first find out what is actually slowing your website down.

A useful starting point is Google PageSpeed Insights.

It can provide performance information for both mobile and desktop experiences and can show potential areas for improvement.

You can also use the Core Web Vitals reports available through Google’s tools to understand how real users experience your pages. Google’s web performance guidance recommends measuring performance before and after making changes so that you can see whether your optimization actually helped.

Don’t Test Only Your Homepage

This is a common mistake.

Suppose your homepage is very fast but your blog posts contain large images, embedded videos and several third-party scripts.

Your homepage speed tells you very little about the performance of those articles.

Instead, test different types of pages.

For example:

• Homepage
• A normal blog post
• A long-form article
• A category page
• A product or service page
• A page with many images

If you run a WordPress website, testing several representative pages will give you a much better idea of where your actual problems are.

Don’t Obsess Over the Score

You may see a performance score such as:

62

and immediately think:

“My website is terrible.”

That is not necessarily true.

The score is useful, but it is not the website itself.

Look at the actual problems reported by the test.

For example, if the report tells you that your largest image is unnecessarily large, that gives you something actionable.

If another recommendation concerns a tiny optimization that would save only a few milliseconds, it may not deserve your attention yet.

Fix the biggest problems first.

This principle will save you a lot of time.

Step 2: Optimize Your Website’s Images

For many websites, images are one of the biggest contributors to page weight.

Think about a typical blog post.

It may contain:

• A featured image
• Several images inside the article
• Screenshots
• Product images
• Author images
• Decorative graphics

If every image is unnecessarily large, the visitor’s browser has to download much more data.

Google’s web performance guidance notes that images account for a large portion of the bytes transferred by typical web pages, which is why image optimization can have a significant effect on performance.

Upload Images at a Reasonable Size

Suppose an image will only appear at about 800 pixels wide inside your article.

There is little reason to upload a huge 5000-pixel-wide image and force the browser to download all that extra data.

Instead, prepare an appropriately sized image before uploading it, or use your website’s image optimization system to generate suitable sizes.

This is particularly important for mobile visitors.

Serving an unnecessarily large desktop image to a small mobile screen can waste data. Responsive images allow browsers to choose a more appropriate image size for the device.

Compress Your Images

Compression reduces the file size of an image while trying to preserve acceptable visual quality.

For example, an image might originally be:

1.2 MB

After proper compression, it might become:

180 KB

The visitor still sees essentially the same image, but the browser has much less data to download.

This can make a noticeable difference, particularly on mobile connections.

Use Modern Image Formats

Modern formats such as WebP and AVIF can often provide smaller files than older formats when used appropriately.

You don’t need to manually convert every image yourself. Many WordPress image optimization plugins and image delivery services can handle this automatically.

Some image CDNs can also resize, compress and convert images based on the visitor’s device and the required display size.

Don’t Make Every Image Lazy-Load

Lazy loading is useful, but it should not be applied blindly.

Lazy loading tells the browser to delay downloading an image until it is likely to be needed.

That is useful for images further down a long article because the visitor may never scroll far enough to see them.

But your main above-the-fold image may be part of the page’s Largest Contentful Paint.

Delaying that image unnecessarily can make the page appear slower.

Web.dev specifically recommends avoiding lazy loading for an above-the-fold LCP image and keeping important images small and efficiently delivered.

A simple rule is:

Images the visitor needs immediately should load quickly. Images far down the page can often be loaded later.

Step 3: Choose Good Web Hosting

Your website can be perfectly optimized and still feel slow if the server hosting it is slow or poorly configured.

Think of hosting as the foundation of your website.

When someone visits a page, their browser needs to communicate with your server and receive the required files. If the server takes too long to respond, optimization elsewhere cannot completely solve the problem.

This is particularly important for Time to First Byte (TTFB), which measures how long it takes for the browser to start receiving a response from the server.

Cheap Hosting Isn’t Always Bad

This does not mean you need the most expensive hosting plan available.

A small personal blog does not need the same infrastructure as a large online store.

The important thing is to choose hosting that is appropriate for your website’s:

• Traffic
• Software
• Location of visitors
• Resource requirements
• Growth plans

For example, if most of your readers are in India but your website’s server is located very far away, the physical distance can contribute to network latency.

A CDN can help with this, but the underlying hosting server still matters.

Shared Hosting Can Be Enough for Beginners

If you’re starting a small WordPress website, shared hosting can be perfectly adequate.

But as your traffic grows, you may eventually need more server resources or a different hosting setup.

The key is not:

“Buy the most expensive hosting.”

It is:

“Use hosting that can comfortably handle your website.”

Step 4: Enable Caching

Caching is one of the most useful ways to improve website performance.

The basic idea is simple.

Without caching, your server may need to perform many of the same tasks whenever someone requests a page.

With caching, a previously generated version of the page or its resources can be stored temporarily and delivered more quickly.

Imagine that a restaurant has to cook the same popular dish from scratch every time someone orders it.

Now imagine that some of the preparation has already been completed.

The next customer can be served much faster.

Caching works on a similar principle.

Browser Caching

A visitor’s browser can store certain files such as:

• CSS
• JavaScript
• Images
• Fonts

When the visitor opens another page on your website, the browser may already have some of those files.

It doesn’t have to download everything again.

Page Caching

For websites such as WordPress blogs, page caching can store generated pages so the server doesn’t have to rebuild the same page for every visitor.

This can significantly reduce server work and improve response times.

CDN Caching

A CDN can cache resources at servers distributed across different locations.

When a visitor requests a cached resource, it can often be delivered from an edge server closer to that visitor rather than always traveling back to your original hosting server.

This can reduce latency and improve loading performance.

Step 5: Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A Content Delivery Network, usually called a CDN, is a network of servers distributed across different geographical locations.

Instead of every visitor requesting files directly from your hosting server, a CDN can deliver cached resources from an edge server that is closer to the visitor.

For example, suppose your main hosting server is in the United States and someone in India visits your website.

Without a CDN, many requests may need to travel between India and the United States.

With a properly configured CDN, some content can be delivered from an edge location much closer to the Indian visitor.

This can reduce network latency and improve loading performance.

CDNs are particularly useful for websites with visitors spread across different regions. They can also reduce the load on the origin server by serving cached resources from edge locations.

But a CDN is not a magic speed button.

If your website has huge images, excessive JavaScript or a poorly configured server, putting a CDN in front of it does not automatically fix every problem.

Think of a CDN as one part of your performance strategy, not the entire strategy.

But there is another important side of website performance that beginners often overlook.

Your website can become slow simply because it is trying to load too many things.

Every plugin, font, JavaScript file, tracking code, social widget, advertisement and embedded video can add more work for the visitor’s browser.

So, after optimizing images and setting up caching, the next step is to look at what your website is actually loading.

Step 6: Remove Unnecessary WordPress Plugins

If you use WordPress, you have probably installed plugins to add different features to your website.

One plugin may add a contact form.

Another may add social sharing buttons.

Another may add analytics features.

Another may add a popup.

Another may add a related-posts section.

Over time, it is easy to end up with dozens of plugins.

But having many plugins does not automatically mean your website is slow.

The real issue is what those plugins load and how they work.

A lightweight plugin that does one simple job may have very little effect on performance, while a poorly designed plugin can add significant CSS, JavaScript or database work.

Review your plugins regularly

Go through your installed plugins and ask:

• Do I actually use this plugin?
• Does my website really need this feature?
• Is another plugin already providing the same functionality?
• Is the plugin loading files on pages where they are not needed?
• Is the plugin still maintained?

If you installed a plugin six months ago for an experiment and no longer use it, remove it.

Don’t keep plugins installed simply because you might need them someday.

Don’t fall for the “fewer plugins = faster website” rule

You may have heard that you should never use more than 10 or 15 WordPress plugins.

There is no universal number like that.

A website with 20 well-built plugins can be faster than a website with five poorly coded plugins.

Instead of counting plugins, look at the work those plugins make your website perform.

This is a much more useful way to think about WordPress performance.

Step 7: Reduce Unnecessary JavaScript

JavaScript allows websites to do useful things.

It powers features such as:

• Menus
• Sliders
• Forms
• Interactive elements
• Shopping carts
• Analytics
• Advertisements
• Popups
• Chat widgets
• Social media embeds

The problem starts when a website loads JavaScript that isn’t really necessary.

Every script can require additional network requests, downloading, parsing and execution. Large amounts of JavaScript can also keep the browser’s main thread busy, which can delay rendering and user interactions.

For example, imagine a simple blog article that loads:

• Three analytics scripts
• Two advertising scripts
• A chat widget
• A social sharing script
• A popup script
• A slider library
• Several other JavaScript libraries

The visitor may only want to read a 1,500-word article, but the browser has to deal with all these additional resources.

Remove scripts you don’t need

If a script does not provide meaningful value to your visitors, consider removing it.

For example, if you installed a social media widget but almost nobody uses it, you may decide that the small performance cost isn’t worth keeping it.

The same applies to decorative effects.

A fancy animation might look impressive, but if it makes the page slower without helping the visitor, a simpler design may be better.

Don’t remove JavaScript blindly

Be careful here.

Some JavaScript is necessary for your website to work properly.

If you remove or delay the wrong script, you might break:

• Navigation menus
• Contact forms
• Login functionality
• Shopping carts
• Affiliate tracking
• Analytics
• Other important features

So the goal isn’t “remove JavaScript.”

The goal is:

Load only the JavaScript you need, and load it at the appropriate time.

Step 8: Delay Non-Critical JavaScript

Some JavaScript doesn’t need to run immediately.

Imagine someone opens a long article.

The most important thing is for them to see the article content quickly.

A chat widget at the bottom-right corner doesn’t necessarily need to load at the exact same moment as the article’s headline and main content.

The same can apply to some analytics, social widgets and other non-essential scripts.

Depending on the script, techniques such as async and defer can allow the browser to continue processing the page while the script is downloaded rather than making the script block normal HTML parsing.

However, this is an area where you should be careful.

Don’t add async or defer to every script without testing.

Some scripts depend on other scripts or need to run at a specific point in the page-loading process.

If you are using WordPress, many performance plugins provide options to delay or defer JavaScript without requiring you to edit the code manually.

After enabling these settings, test your website carefully.

Open the homepage.

Open several articles.

Test the navigation menu.

Submit a form if you have one.

Check your affiliate links.

Make sure everything still works.

Step 9: Reduce Third-Party Scripts

A third-party script is code that comes from a service other than your own website.

Common examples include:

• Google Analytics
• Advertising networks
• Social media widgets
• YouTube embeds
• Chat tools
• Heatmap tools
• Affiliate tracking systems
• Marketing platforms

These services can be useful, but they also have a performance cost.

Your website may need to connect to additional servers, download additional files and execute additional JavaScript before everything is ready. Google’s web performance guidance specifically identifies third-party JavaScript as a common source of performance problems.

Ask yourself whether each service is necessary

Suppose your website has five different tracking tools.

Do you really need all five?

If one tool provides information you never look at, removing it may improve your website and simplify your setup at the same time.

The same applies to social widgets and other external services.

YouTube videos are another example

A YouTube video embedded directly into an article can require additional resources.

If you have several videos on one page, the impact can become more noticeable.

For some websites, using a lightweight video preview and loading the actual video player only when the visitor wants to watch it can be a better approach.

This is particularly useful for pages containing multiple embedded videos.

Step 10: Don’t Use Too Many Fonts

Fonts are another small detail that can become a performance problem when they are not handled properly.

You might choose several font families and multiple weights such as:

• Regular
• Medium
• Semi-bold
• Bold
• Extra-bold
• Italic

The browser may then need to download several font files.

Large web fonts can affect loading and rendering performance, while unnecessary font files increase the amount of data the browser needs to download.

Keep your font setup simple

For most websites, you don’t need five different font families.

One font for the main content and perhaps another for headings is usually more than enough.

You can also reduce the number of font weights you use.

For example, instead of loading:

Regular + Light + Medium + Semi-bold + Bold + Extra-bold

you might only need:

Regular + Bold

This reduces the number of font resources the browser needs to deal with.

Consider system fonts

Another option is to use system fonts.

A system font is already available on the visitor’s device, so the browser may not need to download an additional font file.

This can be a simple way to reduce external font requests.

You don’t have to avoid Google Fonts or other web fonts completely. The important thing is to use fonts thoughtfully rather than loading a large collection simply because they are available.

Step 11: Optimize Your CSS

CSS controls how your website looks.

It defines things such as:

• Colors
• Fonts
• Spacing
• Layout
• Buttons
• Menus
• Responsive design
• Animations

Just like JavaScript, unnecessary CSS can add extra work.

A website may contain CSS for features that are no longer being used.

For example, a theme or plugin may load a large stylesheet even though a particular page only uses a small portion of it.

Minify CSS

Minification removes unnecessary characters such as extra spaces, line breaks and comments from CSS files.

For example, code written for humans to read may contain lots of spacing and formatting.

A minified version removes much of that unnecessary formatting, resulting in a smaller file.

The browser does not need those spaces and comments to understand the CSS.

Many WordPress caching and performance plugins can handle CSS minification automatically.

Be careful with CSS optimization

Some advanced optimization features can change how CSS is delivered.

For example, removing unused CSS or generating critical CSS can improve performance, but incorrect configuration can sometimes cause parts of your website to appear incorrectly.

So again:

Enable one optimization at a time and test your website after each major change.

Step 12: Keep Your Page Design Simple

Website speed isn’t only about technical settings.

Your design itself can affect performance.

Imagine two websites.

Website A

It has:

• A simple header
• Clear navigation
• One featured image
• Easy-to-read content
• A few useful buttons

Website B

It has:

• A video background
• Several sliders
• Animated sections
• Large decorative images
• Multiple popups
• Social widgets
• Moving elements
• Several embedded services

Website B may look more impressive at first glance.

But it also has considerably more work to do.

For a content website, simple doesn’t mean boring.

A clean layout can actually make your content easier to read while reducing unnecessary resources.

This is especially important for mobile users.

Google also recommends focusing on providing a good user experience, and notes that fast pages generally provide better user satisfaction than slow pages.

Step 13: Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

A website that is fast on your desktop computer may not feel fast on a mobile phone.

This is because mobile visitors may have:

• Slower connections
• Less powerful processors
• Smaller screens
• Limited data plans

Your website should therefore be tested on mobile as well as desktop.

Pay attention to large mobile images

A desktop visitor may have a large screen and a fast connection.

A mobile visitor may be viewing the same page over a cellular connection.

Sending unnecessarily large images to that visitor wastes bandwidth.

Responsive images can help the browser select an appropriately sized image for the device and display context.

Keep mobile navigation simple

A complicated menu with multiple scripts and animations may also make the mobile experience unnecessarily difficult.

Ask yourself:

Can a visitor quickly understand what this page is about and start reading?

If the answer is yes, you’re already moving in the right direction.

Step 14: Give Your Important Content Priority

Not everything on your page has equal importance.

Your visitor probably cares about the main content much more than a footer widget.

For a typical blog article, the priority might look something like this:

Article title → Main content → Important image → Navigation → Secondary content → Footer widgets

This is why performance optimization often focuses on the critical rendering path, which is the collection of resources the browser needs to display the initial visible portion of a page. Third-party resources and unnecessary scripts can interfere with this process if they are loaded at the wrong time.

The basic idea is simple:

Show the important stuff first. Load the less important stuff later.

This doesn’t mean visitors should see an incomplete or broken page. It means the browser should prioritize the resources needed to make the page useful as quickly as possible.

Step 15: Don’t Try to Fix Everything at Once

This is one of the most important pieces of advice in this entire guide.

When you run a speed test and see 15 recommendations, you may feel tempted to change everything immediately.

Don’t.

Make a list.

For example:

1. Optimize large images
2. Enable caching
3. Remove unused plugins
4. Reduce unnecessary scripts
5. Optimize fonts
6. Review third-party services
7. Test mobile performance

Then make the changes one by one.

After each important change, test the website again.

Why?

Because if you change 15 things simultaneously and your website becomes faster, you won’t know which change actually helped.

Worse, if something breaks, you won’t know which change caused the problem.

Measure → change → test → compare.

That’s a much safer approach.

Final Optimizations and a Simple Speed Checklist

So far, we have covered the biggest areas that affect website speed, including images, hosting, caching, CDNs, plugins, JavaScript, fonts and third-party resources.

Now let’s look at some of the remaining improvements that can make a difference, especially if your website still feels slow after handling the obvious problems.

Step 16: Improve Your Server Response Time

Before your page can display its content, the browser first needs to communicate with your website’s server.

If the server takes too long to respond, everything that comes after it is delayed.

This is where Time to First Byte (TTFB) becomes useful.

TTFB measures how long it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of the server’s response. It is an important part of the loading process because a slow server response delays other loading milestones. Web.dev suggests that, as a rough target, most websites should aim for a TTFB of around 0.8 seconds or less.

What can cause a slow server response?

Several things can contribute:

• Poor-quality hosting
• Too many server-side processes
• Heavy WordPress plugins
• Poorly optimized database queries
• Lack of page caching
• High server load
• A server located far from your main audience

If your website consistently has a poor TTFB, don’t immediately start changing JavaScript or CSS.

The problem may be happening before the browser even receives the page.

What can you do?

Start with the simplest solutions:

1. Make sure your hosting plan has enough resources.
2. Enable page caching.
3. Remove unnecessary plugins.
4. Optimize your database if needed.
5. Use a CDN where appropriate.
6. Contact your hosting provider if server response remains unusually slow.

If your website has grown significantly, you may eventually need to move from basic shared hosting to a hosting plan with more resources.

But don’t upgrade simply because someone tells you that expensive hosting is always faster.

Measure the problem first.

Step 17: Enable Compression

Your website sends many text-based files to visitors, including:

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• SVG files

These files can often be compressed before being sent over the internet.

Two common compression technologies are Gzip and Brotli.

Brotli can generally compress web resources more efficiently than Gzip, and modern browsers widely support it. Many hosting providers and CDNs can enable compression automatically.

Do you need to configure this manually?

Usually, no.

Your hosting provider, CDN or performance plugin may already handle it.

The important thing is to check whether compression is already enabled before spending time trying to configure it yourself.

If your hosting provider already uses Brotli, there is no reason to install another plugin simply to enable compression.

Don’t add a plugin for something your hosting or CDN already handles.

Step 18: Reduce Unnecessary Redirects

A redirect tells the browser:

“The page you requested is somewhere else. Go there instead.”

Redirects are useful and sometimes necessary.

For example, if you permanently move an article to a new URL, a 301 redirect helps visitors and search engines reach the new location.

But unnecessary redirects add another step to the loading process.

For example:

Visitor → URL A → URL B → URL C

is less efficient than:

Visitor → URL C

Google’s web performance guidance recommends minimizing redirects because each additional redirect can introduce extra network requests and latency.

Avoid unnecessary redirect chains

If you changed an article’s URL several times, check whether multiple redirects have accumulated.

For example:

old-url.com → middle-url.com → current-url.com

If the middle URL is no longer needed, you may be able to redirect the original URL directly to the final URL.

Also make sure your internal links point directly to the final URL.

If your article is:

don’t link internally to:

http://example.com/article

if that URL simply redirects to the HTTPS version.

The same principle applies to trailing slashes and other URL variations.

Step 19: Use HTTP/2 or HTTP/3

You don’t need to understand the technical details of HTTP protocols to benefit from them.

Modern websites can use HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, which provide performance improvements over older HTTP/1 connections.

HTTP/2 supports features such as multiplexing, allowing multiple requests to share a connection. HTTP/3 builds on newer transport technology and can offer additional performance benefits in suitable situations.

What should a beginner do?

In most cases, nothing complicated.

Modern hosting providers and CDNs often support HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 already.

Check your hosting or CDN settings to see whether the feature is available.

Don’t install a plugin claiming to “enable HTTP/3” unless you understand what it is actually changing.

Your goal should be to use the modern protocol supported by your hosting/CDN, not to add another unnecessary layer to your website.

Step 20: Optimize Videos and Other Heavy Content

Images aren’t the only files that can make a page heavy.

Videos can be much larger.

A single video can potentially be hundreds of megabytes, depending on its resolution and length.

If you upload large videos directly to your web hosting and place several of them on one page, visitors may have to download a significant amount of data.

Don’t automatically load every video

If a visitor has to scroll through a long article before reaching a video, there is usually no reason to load the entire video player immediately.

You can consider loading video content only when it is needed.

For example:

Visitor opens article → sees a lightweight preview → clicks video → player loads

This can reduce the amount of work required during the initial page load.

The same general principle applies to other heavy embedded content.

Don’t make the browser load something before the visitor actually needs it.

Step 21: Clean Up Your WordPress Database

If you run WordPress, your database stores information such as:

• Posts
• Pages
• Comments
• Revisions
• Plugin settings
• Other website data

Over time, unnecessary data can accumulate.

For example, a website with years of editing activity may have a large number of old post revisions.

Database optimization can help keep your WordPress installation organized, but don’t expect it to magically transform a very slow website into a fast one.

If your main problem is a huge image, slow hosting or excessive JavaScript, cleaning the database won’t solve the underlying issue.

Think of database cleanup as maintenance, not a magic speed fix.

Before making database changes, make sure you have a reliable backup.

Step 22: Keep WordPress, Themes and Plugins Updated

Keeping your website software updated is important for more than security.

Updates can include:

• Bug fixes
• Compatibility improvements
• Performance improvements
• Security fixes
• New browser support

However, don’t blindly update everything on a production website without considering compatibility.

For an important website, maintain a backup and test major changes when possible.

Also remove plugins and themes that you no longer use instead of leaving them installed indefinitely.

Step 23: Use HTTPS

If your website still uses HTTP instead of HTTPS, fixing that should be a priority.

HTTPS protects the connection between the visitor and your website and is the standard for modern websites.

Google recommends using HTTPS rather than HTTP for security, and HTTPS is also part of the broader signals associated with good page experience.

Most modern hosting providers offer SSL certificates, often through Let’s Encrypt or another certificate provider.

For a new website, there is very little reason to run the public site without HTTPS.

Step 24: Check Your Website After Every Major Optimization

This step is easy to overlook.

You may enable caching, combine CSS files, delay JavaScript and optimize images, only to discover that your website’s menu no longer works.

That’s why optimization should always be followed by testing.

After making major changes, check:

• Homepage
• Blog posts
• Category pages
• Navigation menu
• Search
• Contact forms
• Images
• Videos
• Mobile layout
• Affiliate links
• Login or account features, if applicable

Also test the website in an incognito/private browser window.

Cached files can sometimes make you think everything is working when another visitor may see something different.

Step 25: Test Your Website Again

Now return to PageSpeed Insights and test the same pages you tested before.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights can analyze pages on both mobile and desktop and combines laboratory testing with real-world data when sufficient field data is available.

This gives you a way to compare your results.

For example:

Before optimization

• LCP: 4.1 seconds
• INP: 240 ms
• CLS: 0.18

After optimization

• LCP: 2.3 seconds
• INP: 170 ms
• CLS: 0.05

You don’t need to chase these exact numbers. The example simply shows why measuring before and after is useful.

Remember the three Core Web Vitals

The current Core Web Vitals are:

LCP: How quickly the main content becomes visible.

INP: How quickly the page responds to user interactions.

CLS: How much the page layout unexpectedly moves while loading.

Google’s PageSpeed Insights reports these metrics and classifies experiences using established thresholds.

Google recommends achieving good Core Web Vitals, but it also emphasizes that page experience is broader than Core Web Vitals alone. There isn’t one single “page experience” ranking signal that determines where a page ranks.

So don’t become obsessed with getting a perfect 100/100 score.

A Simple Website Speed Optimization Checklist

If everything we’ve discussed feels overwhelming, don’t worry.

You don’t have to do everything at once.

Start with this checklist.

Basic website speed checklist

• Test your website with PageSpeed Insights
• Test both mobile and desktop
• Identify the biggest performance problems
• Resize unnecessarily large images
• Compress images
• Use WebP or AVIF where appropriate
• Avoid lazy-loading important above-the-fold images
• Enable page caching
• Use browser caching
• Use a CDN when appropriate
• Remove unused WordPress plugins
• Remove unnecessary scripts
• Review third-party services
• Reduce unnecessary fonts and font weights
• Minify CSS and JavaScript where appropriate
• Reduce unnecessary redirects
• Make sure HTTPS is enabled
• Check server response time
• Keep WordPress, themes and plugins updated
• Optimize heavy videos and embeds
• Test your website again after making changes

You don’t need to complete this entire checklist in one day.

Start with the problems that have the biggest effect.

What Not to Do When Trying to Speed Up Your Website

There is a lot of confusing advice about website speed online.

Some recommendations can actually create more problems than they solve.

Don’t install five caching plugins

One properly configured caching solution is generally better than installing several plugins that perform overlapping tasks.

Two optimization plugins may try to minify the same files, create conflicting cache rules or modify the same JavaScript.

Don’t chase a perfect PageSpeed score

A score of 100 can feel satisfying, but it isn’t the actual goal.

A website should be:

Fast + stable + useful + easy to use

not simply:

100/100 on a test.

Google itself recommends looking at the overall user experience rather than treating one metric as the entire picture.

Don’t remove useful features just to save a few milliseconds

If a feature genuinely helps visitors, don’t automatically remove it because it adds a small amount of JavaScript.

Ask:

Does this feature provide enough value to justify its performance cost?

If the answer is yes, keep it and look for a more efficient way to load it.

Don’t change everything at once

If you change 20 settings simultaneously, you won’t know what helped or what caused a problem.

Make a change.

Test.

Compare.

Then move to the next improvement.

How to Make Your Website Load Faster: The Simple Formula

If you remember only one thing from this article, remember this:

A faster website usually comes from doing fewer unnecessary things and delivering the necessary things efficiently.

That means:

Smaller images

• better hosting
• caching
• fewer unnecessary scripts
• fewer unnecessary resources
• efficient content delivery
• regular testing

You don’t need to become a web developer to improve your website speed.

Start by testing your site.

Find the biggest problem.

Fix that problem.

Test again.

Then move to the next one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

Website speed is not a one-time task.

Your website will change as you publish new articles, install plugins, add images, embed videos and introduce new features. A website that is fast today can become slower six months from now if performance is ignored.

That’s why it is better to build good habits from the beginning.

Optimize images before uploading them. Keep your plugin list under control. Use caching. Choose hosting that suits your needs. Keep an eye on third-party scripts and test your important pages regularly.

Most importantly, don’t optimize your website only for a number on a speed-testing tool.

Optimize it for the person sitting on the other side of the screen.

When your website opens quickly, responds properly and stays visually stable, visitors can spend less time waiting and more time doing what they came to your website to do.

And that is what website performance optimization is really about.

Related Guides You May Find Helpful

• Web Hosting Explained for Beginners: Learn how web hosting works and how to choose the right hosting option for your website.
• SEO for Beginners: Complete Guide to Ranking Higher: Learn the fundamentals of SEO and how different factors can help your website appear higher in search results.

About the Author

Hari Itham is the founder of OrbitElf. He writes beginner-friendly tutorials on blogging, WordPress, SEO, web hosting, AI tools, and online business to help aspiring creators build, grow, and monetize successful websites with confidence.