A fast website converts better and ranks better. The good news is that most WordPress speed wins are within your reach without touching any code. Here are the ones with the biggest impact, from most to least.
- Use a modern PHP version. This is the best bang for your buck: from cPanel, move to a supported version (see our PHP version guide). For many sites, this alone is a noticeable jump.
- Install a caching plugin. It stores ready-made copies of your pages so they aren't rebuilt on every visit. Any of the popular ones will do; activate it and keep the recommended settings.
- Optimise your images. They're usually the heaviest part. Upload images at their real display size (not a 5,000 px photo shown at 800) and use a plugin that compresses them and serves modern formats.
- Drop what you don't use. Every active plugin and theme adds weight. Uninstall (don't just deactivate) anything you don't need.
- Keep everything updated. An up-to-date WordPress, theme and plugins are faster and safer.
How to tell if it's working: use a free speed-testing tool before and after each change. That way you know what's actually helping.
If your site is still slow after all this, you may have outgrown your plan or a specific plugin may be dragging things down. Open a ticket and we'll help you track down the bottleneck.
