Speed is part of good website design — and most of what slows a site down is fixable without a rebuild. These are one-time changes you can make today, grouped so you can start anywhere. For the deep dive, see our full speed optimization guide.
Images & Media
Compress Your Images
What to doRun your photos through a tool like TinyPNG or Squoosh before uploading — most can shrink 60–80% with no visible quality loss.
Why it mattersOversized images are the single biggest cause of slow pages, often making up most of a page's total weight.
How it helpsLighter images download faster on every device, so your page appears sooner — especially on mobile data.
Serve Images in WebP Format
What to doConvert your JPGs and PNGs to WebP, which delivers the same quality at a much smaller file size.
Why it mattersOlder formats carry more data than they need; WebP is now supported by every modern browser.
How it helpsSmaller files for identical quality means faster loads with zero compromise on how your site looks.
Lazy-Load Below-the-Fold Images
What to doAdd loading="lazy" to images further down the page so they only load as the visitor scrolls to them.
Why it mattersLoading every image up front wastes bandwidth on things the visitor may never scroll down to see.
How it helpsThe top of your page loads first and fast, so visitors see content immediately instead of a blank screen.
Set Width and Height on Images
What to doAdd explicit width and height attributes to your images so the browser reserves the right space before they load.
Why it mattersWithout dimensions, the page jumps around as images pop in — a frustrating shift Google measures and penalizes.
How it helpsA stable layout feels faster and more polished, and protects your Core Web Vitals score.
Code & Scripts
Minify Your CSS and JavaScript
What to doStrip out spaces, comments, and line breaks from your CSS and JS files — most platforms have a one-click setting or plugin for this.
Why it mattersUnminified files carry extra characters the browser has to download but never needs to run the page.
How it helpsSmaller code files download and parse faster, trimming load time with no change to how the site behaves.
Defer Non-Critical JavaScript
What to doAdd the defer or async attribute to scripts that aren't needed to render the first screen, like analytics and chat widgets.
Why it mattersRender-blocking scripts force the browser to wait, leaving visitors staring at a blank page.
How it helpsThe page draws first and the extras load after, so your content shows up noticeably sooner.
Remove Plugins and Scripts You Don't Use
What to doAudit your installed plugins and embedded third-party scripts, and delete anything you're no longer actively using.
Why it mattersEvery plugin and tracker adds code, requests, and weight — even the ones doing nothing useful.
How it helpsA leaner site has less to load and fewer things that can break, so it runs faster and more reliably.
Load Only the Fonts You Actually Use
What to doCut your web fonts down to the families and weights you really use, and add display=swap so text shows while fonts load.
Why it mattersEach extra font weight is a separate file, and fonts can block your text from appearing at all.
How it helpsFewer font files load faster, and swap keeps your text visible instead of leaving a blank space.
Delivery & Hosting
Turn On Browser Caching
What to doEnable browser caching so returning visitors store your logo, styles, and scripts instead of re-downloading them every visit.
Why it mattersWithout caching, every visit reloads the same unchanged files from scratch, wasting time and bandwidth.
How it helpsRepeat visits load almost instantly, which matters most for the customers closest to buying.
Enable a Page Cache
What to doTurn on full-page caching (a setting or plugin on most platforms) so your server hands out a ready-made page instead of rebuilding it each time.
Why it mattersGenerating every page from scratch on each request adds delay and strains your server under traffic.
How it helpsCached pages are served in a fraction of the time and hold up far better when visitors arrive at once.
Put Your Site Behind a CDN
What to doRoute your site through a content delivery network like Cloudflare so files are served from a location near each visitor.
Why it mattersThe farther a visitor is from your server, the longer every file takes to arrive.
How it helpsServing from the nearest edge location shortens that distance, so your pages load faster for everyone.
Turn On GZIP or Brotli Compression
What to doEnable GZIP or Brotli compression on your server so your HTML, CSS, and JS are compressed before they're sent to the browser.
Why it mattersSending uncompressed text files moves far more data over the wire than necessary.
How it helpsCompressed files can be a fraction of their original size, cutting transfer time on every page load.