A slow website loses visitors and rankings. This full class (just under an hour) covers why speed matters, how to test it and how to fix the common causes in WordPress. Here is the checklist version.
Why speed matters
- Visitors leave if a page takes more than a few seconds to load, especially on mobile data.
- Google uses page experience signals, including Core Web Vitals.
- Faster sites convert better.
Test first
Run your key pages through PageSpeed Insights and note the mobile score and the largest contentful paint (LCP). Test again after each change.
The checklist
- Images: resize to the size they are shown, compress them and use modern formats like WebP. Our image compressor and image format converter help.
- Caching: install a caching plugin or use your host's caching.
- Plugins: remove unused ones and replace heavy ones.
- Theme: use a lightweight theme; avoid sliders and heavy animations.
- Hosting: cheap shared hosting is often the bottleneck. Choose a host with good server response times.
- Lazy loading: load images and videos only when they come into view.
- Minify and combine CSS and JavaScript where safe.
- CDN: a content delivery network serves files from servers close to visitors.
- Database cleanup: remove old revisions, spam comments and transients.
- Fonts: limit font families and weights.
Keep it fast
Re-test after adding new plugins or big pages. Speed is not a one-time fix.
Want the full picture? This article is part of Business websites: the complete guide, our in-depth guide with everything in one place.
