Improving WordPress Page Speed: 20 Expert Recommendations to Maximise the Performance of a WordPress Site
Interested in optimising your WordPress site? These 20 pro tips will positively impact the page-speed of WordPress, and the Core Web Vitals, as well as, improve the visibility of your website on SEO and AI.
The speed of the websites is pivotal to success. Whether running a business, a blog site or an e-commerce store, any performance optimisation of WordPress enhances user experience, interaction and ranking in Google or the AI-based search engines such as ChatGPT or Perplexity.
What Is Page Speed and its Importance to WordPress SEO?
Page speed is the duration of time required to load your WordPress site. It impacts:
- User Experience: Slow sites annoy customers. A Google experiment discovered that the bounce rates increase by 32% as load time goes up from 1s to 3s.
- Search Visibility: Rapid websites appear higher in terms of Google and AI searches. One SEO ranking factor that has been proven in WordPress websites is page speed.
Top Tools for Evaluating WordPress Page Speed
Use these resources to analyse your website's performance:
- Google PageSpeed Insights — Test the speed of your mobile and desktop WordPress site and see the suggestions.
- GTmetrix — Detailed waterfall analysis for resource loading.
- Pingdom Tools — Beneficial for performing uptime and speed repeat evaluations.
20 Expert WordPress Optimisation Techniques to Improve Your Website's Speed
1. Get Rid of Resources That Prevent Rendering
To alleviate blocking, one should incorporate
async
or
defer
into JavaScript and confirm that scripts are situated prior to the closing body tag. This approach will result in better Core Web Vitals and an improved perception of the page's speed.
2. Do Not Chain Critical Requests
Break dependency chains by postponing non-critical scripts. This increases the effectiveness of loading of your WordPress website.
3. Request Counts Low: Transfer Sizes Small
Reduce the number of external scripts and compress files in order to minimise payload and enhance TTFB (Time to First Byte).
4. Minify CSS & JavaScript
Install plugins such as Autoptimize or WP Rocket to encode files, minimising their size, and optimising the speed of WordPress.
5. Remove Unused CSS
Chrome Dev Tools can be used to trace and delete any unused styles that can cause unnecessary bloat to the page.
6. Minimise Main Thread Work
Streamline code and make frequently used data become cacheable in order to make your site more responsive.
7. Minimise JavaScript Execution Time
Load only critical JavaScript and wait to get ready to interact with third-party scripts.
8. Minimise Server Response Time (TTFB)
Perform globally with the help of quality hosting and a Content Delivery Network (CDN) system, such as Cloudflare or Bunny.net.
9. Use Proper Image Sizes
Images can be resized and compressed prior to uploading. Use
srcset
to enable responsive display and faster loading on mobile devices.
10. Lazy Load to Offscreen Images
Enable native lazy loading (
loading="lazy"
) or install Lazy Load using the WP Rocket Plugin to load only visible images.
11. Efficiently Encode Bad Images
Use TinyPNG or ImageOptim for compression to reduce file size while retaining quality.
12. Use Next-Gen Image Formats
Image delivery is modern and faster with WebP or AVIF conversion of JPG/PNG images.
13. Animate Contents with Video Formats
Instead of using GIFs, use compressed MP4 or WebM videos as they load faster and are better for SEO.
14. Persist in Displaying Text on Page Load
Set
font-display: swap;
so that text can be seen immediately, improving LCP (Largest Contentful Paint).
15. Enable Text Compression
Activate GZIP or Brotli compression through either
.htaccess
or caching plugins to decrease the loading time.
16. Minimise Redirects on Multiple Pages
Avoid unnecessary redirects ; it is more convenient to keep existing URLs as links.
17. Deliver Static Assets with an Effective Cache Policy
Establish cache regulations (
Cache-Control
and
Expires
) to ensure that returning visitors can access pages immediately.
18. Curtail the Influence of External Scripts
Restrict external scripting. Optimise their loading behaviour by using the attributes of
preconnect
,
defer
and
async
.
19. Eliminate Large Network Payloads
Keep total page size under 1.6MB using compression, caching, and image Optimisation.
20. Avoid an Excessive DOM Size
Maintain a clean and lightweight HTML structure. Limit the depth of nesting and adopt streamlined markup to facilitate faster rendering.
Why Speed Optimisation is Essential for AI and Search Visibility
Websites that are fast are not only ranked more favourably on Google, but they are also more often cited in AI-based search engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Pages that are organised, load quickly, and are semantically clear are more likely to appear in AI-generated responses.
Optimise Your WordPress Website with Mark1 Business Solutions
At Mark1 Business Solutions, our specialists in WordPress speed optimisation focus on enhancing performance, Core Web Vitals, and security. Our offerings include image compression and caching, as well as comprehensive performance audits, all designed to boost the speed of your WordPress site while improving SEO and AI visibility.
Reach Out to Our WordPress Experts Today to make your site quicker, more secure, and prepared for the future of AI search.
