A faster WordPress site, and why Google cares
Someone taps a link to your site from their phone. The screen stays white for a few seconds, then a picture pops in and the text jumps down just as they go to tap a button. Many people give up before that happens and tap the next result instead.
Google notices. It wants to send people to pages that work well, so how fast and steady your pages feel is one of the things it weighs when it ranks them. A faster site keeps more of the visitors you already have, and it helps you get more.
You do not need to be a developer to follow this. Some steps you can do yourself; others are worth handing to whoever looks after your site.
What Google actually measures
Google sums up how a page feels with three measures it calls Core Web Vitals:
- How fast the main content appears. Usually the big picture or headline at the top. Google wants it showing within 2.5 seconds.
- How fast the page reacts when you tap or click. If a button sits there doing nothing, that counts against you.
- How much the page jumps around while it loads. Text that shifts just as you go to tap it is the classic example.
I explain each of these in plain words in What are Core Web Vitals?. For now, the point is that Google measures them on real visits, mostly from phones. A site that feels fine on your office computer can still score badly.
Start by measuring where you are
Before you change anything, write down how your site does today, so you can tell later whether a change helped.
- PageSpeed Insights is free from Google. Type in your address and it shows your Core Web Vitals and a list of suggestions. Look at the phone result first.
- Google Search Console shows how your pages do over time on real visits, and which pages need work.
Test your home page and the two or three pages people use most, such as your services page or contact page.
Good hosting comes first
Every other fix sits on top of your hosting. Cheap shared hosting puts your site on a crowded server, and no plugin can make up for a slow server.
Look for a host that runs a current version of PHP (the language WordPress is written in) and gives your site enough room to breathe. Moving from an old PHP version to a current one is often one of the cheapest speed gains there is, and it is safer too.
Use a lightweight theme
Your theme decides how your site looks, and some themes carry a lot of extra weight: sliders, animations and features you never turned on, all loading on every page. A theme built for speed, with only the features you use, makes everything after this easier.
Shrink your pictures
Pictures are usually the heaviest thing on a page. A photo straight off a phone can be many times larger than it needs to be on screen.
- Resize photos to the size they will be shown before you upload them.
- Use an image plugin that compresses pictures and converts them to modern formats such as WebP, which look the same and weigh much less.
- Let pictures further down the page load only when someone scrolls to them, but never the main picture at the top. Delaying that one makes your page look slower, not faster.
Turn on caching
Each time someone visits, WordPress builds the page from scratch. Caching saves a finished copy and hands that out instead, which is much faster.
One good caching plugin is enough. Running two or three at once is a common mistake: they fight each other and can make the site slower or break it.
Some pages should never be cached, because they are different for each person: shopping carts, checkout, account and member pages, and forms. Good caching plugins handle the common ones, but check that yours does.
Fewer plugins, better plugins
Every plugin adds a bit of work to each page. A handful of plugins doing the same job, or plugins you installed once and forgot, add up. Go through your list, remove what you do not use, and replace overlapping ones with a single good one.
A tool called Query Monitor can show which plugins are slowing a page down. It is aimed at developers, but it is the quickest way to find the worst offender.
Use a content delivery network
A content delivery network (CDN) keeps copies of your site’s pictures and files on servers around the world, so each visitor gets them from somewhere nearby. Cloudflare has a free plan that suits most small business sites.
Clean up the database
Over time WordPress stores old drafts of every page, leftover settings from deleted plugins and other clutter. A cleanup plugin can remove it on a schedule. Take a backup first.
Leave the deeper work to a developer
Past this point the gains come from work that needs someone comfortable with code: loading the styles for the top of the page first, delaying scripts that are not needed straight away, server settings, and finding slow database queries. If you have done the steps above and your phone scores are still poor, that is the time to bring someone in.
Mistakes that undo the work
- Squeezing code too hard. Settings that strip and combine your site’s code can break forms, menus and page builders. Turn them on one at a time and test.
- Testing only on a computer. Phones are slower and on slower connections. Test on a real phone.
- Turning off security to save speed. A small speed gain is not worth an open door.
- Losing what helps people find you. After big changes, check that your page titles, descriptions and links still work. PageSpeed Insights and Search Console will both show problems.
- Forgetting accessibility. Keep alt text on your pictures and make sure the site still works with a keyboard.
Speed is upkeep, not a one-time job
Sites slow down as plugins, pictures and features pile up. Keep WordPress, your theme and plugins updated, and check PageSpeed Insights every few months, or after any big change.
If you would rather hand this to someone, I have been building websites for over 25 years and can tell you quickly where your site’s time is going. Call me at 801-688-8590 or email seth@smartwebutah.com.