WordPress Performance 2024
Improve the loading time of your own website
Google has made loading speed (website speed or PageSpeed) a crucial ranking factor. Since then, it has been essential to check the loading time of your website and, if necessary, optimize it for the findability of your own website. Mobile users with smartphones or tablets don’t like slow websites on the go. High-speed Internet for mobile devices is already available in metropolitan areas, but the Internet connection via smartphone is usually considerably slower than in stationary WLAN. Optimization for fast loading times is therefore particularly important. In any case, the loading time of the website should be less than 3 seconds, 1.5 seconds is optimal.
Google likes fast loading websites
Google Ranking
The loading time in which a website is built is a ranking factor and an important quality feature for Google. Fast loading times improve the positioning in the search engines.
Who wants to wait?
User-friendly
What is important for Google is just as important for the users of a website. If you want your website to be professional, good looks are no longer enough. Loading times in particular are a criterion for whether the website is enjoyed by potential customers. Otherwise, services and product presentations will be nerve-wracking and customers will drop out prematurely.
Faster = Better
bounce rate
Visitors to a website don’t wait for long loading times. You leave the website before it is fully loaded. High bounce rates are the result, which, by the way, also has a very negative effect on the ranking on Google.
Every second more sales
increase in sales
Loading times are not only a decisive factor for your sales in e-commerce. However, optimizing page speed is particularly important in this area. Surveys at the online retailer Amazon have shown that 100 milliseconds of additional loading time cause a drop in sales of around 1 percent.
Smartphone users love speed
Mobile Devices
The technologies for mobile connections are still relatively slow and not comparable to a high-speed connection at home or at work. However, mobile website users are a significant customer potential that should not be forgotten. PageSpeed optimization is especially important for the use of mobile devices.
PageSpeed Optimization for WordPress Websites
We specialize in optimizing your WordPress website for fast loading times.
Measuring charging times
We determine the loading times of your website in a comprehensive analysis. We use various tools and analysis programs, different Internet connections and different end devices.
optimization
Through suitable measures such as source code compression, caching, image optimization and many other optimizations, which we have described below, we ensure optimal loading times for your website.
Benefits
When all optimizations have been carried out, you will receive detailed statistics and result analyses from us. With this, you can check for yourself how your website’s loading speed has improved.
Measures to optimize loading time
WordPress Performance 2024
Optimize all images
Merge style sheets
Reduce HTTP requests
Minify/Summarize HTML
Minify / summarize CSS
JS minify/combine
Activate delayed JS (defer)
Enable LazyLoad for images
Using CSS sprites
Using server-side caching
Set up browser caching
Setting up Gzip compression
Set up CDN
301-reduce redirects
Using a dedicated server
Improve server response time
Use current PHP version
Set up SSL certificate
Reduce plugins on the website
Enable HTTP / 2
Agency prices performance optimization
Website performance and page speed optimization
Analyzes
The first step of our optimizations is to find out what’s slowing down your website and decide what’s worth investigating. There are two tools to help us do this.
Lighthouse
Google Lighthouse focuses on metrics tied to Google’s understanding of user experience and SEO, such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) or Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
GTmetrix
GTmetrix provides a more comprehensive technical performance assessment. This gives us insights into the page size, the number of inquiries and many other evaluations.
Performance Optimization
1590€
(plus VAT)
Website Analysis
Lighthouse analysis
GTmetrix analysis
Server optimization
Improve server response time
PHP Version Update
Aktiviation HTTP/2
Secure Frame Headers setup
Use SSL
WordPress system optimization
Check the number of plugins and reduce them if necessary
Minimize number of fonts
Switch fonts to system fonts (if necessary)
Preload fonts with code
Caching optimization
Activation and configuration caching
Minification HTML/CSS/JS
Defer HTML/CSS/JS
CORE WEB VITALS Optimization
First Contentful Paint
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Total Blocking Time
Cumulative Layout Shift
Accessibility optimizations and best practices are not included in the services, but can be ordered separately if these measures are necessary.
The price for the optimizations is calculated for a daily rate. Within this time, we achieve a significant improvement in performance, e.g. from the red area below 50/100 points to the orange area up to 89/100 points (Lighthouse analysis).
Image optimization
500€
(plus VAT)
Images analysis
Analysis of the images on the website
Analysis of the images in the media library
Images compression
Sizing images to the correct sizes
Setting up a plugin for image optimization
Set lazy load
Image format optimization
Convert jpg, png formats into next generation images
Converting images to .webP formats
Providing .svg format
Providing .avif format
Do not use images as “background”.
The price for image optimization is calculated for a single web page.
By converting the images in the media library into the .webP format and using a corresponding plugin (plugin licenses and costs are not included), sufficient optimization of image performance is usually achieved.
Test website performance yourself
The following tests show the performance of the JoeWP website
The loading speed of a website is extremely important. The full display of the website should be less than 2 seconds. With loading times of more than 3 seconds, you lose customers who usually don’t come back. Especially for websites of companies and companies as well as shops, the loading time of the website is crucial for business success. With the right technology and programming as well as especially optimization for speed (PageSpeed optimization), the website will have the desired success.
Pingdom Website Speed Test
The Pingdom test provides an effective overview of the performance of your own website with results on the degree of optimization and loading speed. Tip: run the test 2 to 3 times in quick succession, as the first result is output without caching. The further results then show the real cached value. Users from Europe should test via “Europ – Germany – Frankfurt”.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix uses various test procedures and displays them collectively. For example, YSlow and Waterfall results are displayed on different tabs. After the test result is output, suggestions for optimization are given. The only disadvantage is that the test is carried out in Vancouver – Canada and therefore the values for Germany are not displayed optimally. With a free GTmetrix account, however, you can also test from London.
Test Optimization Mobile Devices
With the Google test for optimization for mobile devices, you can easily and easily determine whether your own website is suitable and optimized for mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets. Normally, this should already be standard for modern websites (responsive website).
Lighthouse
For developers, there is another way to examine the performance of the website extensively. Lighthouse is an automated, open-source tool for improving the quality of websites. It has audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, SEO, and more. The tool performs a series of checks and then generates a report on the functionality of the page. You can run Lighthouse in Chrome, DevTools, or from the command line.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Result for desktop
With the PageSpeed Insights Tool (PSI) from Google you can examine a website for speed and optimization possibilities.
The tool tests the performance for both desktop and smartphones. Recommendations are also made to improve the user experience. PSI’s report provides an evaluation of the site’s performance. The stated score is determined by running Lighthouse to collect and analyze lab data through the site. A (green) score of over 90 is very good. A score of 50 to 89 (orange) indicates that the website should be improved. A score below 50 (red) is considered bad.
Speeding up a website is usually not an easy task. It’s usually hard to diagnose why a website is running slower than it should. The problems start with poorly written code to unoptimized and too large images and page elements, too many plugins, etc.
These problems should be diagnosed and fixed, otherwise Google will give the website in question a bad rating. Google prefers websites that load quickly. If the website is fast, it will rank better on Google compared to slow websites.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Result for mobile
Lighthouse is currently simulating the loading of pages on a mid-tier device (Moto G4) on a cellular network.
PSI offers laboratory data and field data on one page. Lab data is useful for debugging performance issues because it is collected in a controlled environment. Field data is useful for capturing a real user experience. PSI displays the First Contentful Paint (FCP), First Input Delay (FID), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) metric data for the specific page URL.
Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide consistent quality signals. Core Web Vitals defines the user experience on the web. Optimizing the user experience is key to the long-term success of any website. Web Vitals can quantify your website’s user experience and identify opportunities for improvement.
Core Web Vitals contain a set of signals that are of primary importance for all experiences on the web. The Core Web Vitals metrics are FID, LCP, and CLS with their respective thresholds. A website passes the Core Web Vitals rating if the 75th percentiles of all three metrics are good. Otherwise, the page will not pass the assessment.
Core Web Vitals
The PageSpeed is evaluated by Google through both a live test and stored test results, the “Lighthouse Audits”. In the Google test results, the “Web Vitals” show all the indicators that make a website user-friendly. Website owners shouldn’t be performance gurus to understand the quality of the user experience they provide to their website visitors.
Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide consistent guidelines for quality signals that are essential for an optimal user experience on the web. The Web Vitals initiative aims to simplify the user experience and help websites focus on the most important metrics, the Core Web Vitals. The Web Vitals became the official ranking factor on Google in April 2021.
The metrics that make up Core Web Vitals will evolve over time. The current set for 2020 focuses on three aspects of user experience – loading, interactivity, and visual stability – and includes the following metrics (and their respective thresholds):
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP):
LCP evaluates the loading speed of your website. For the best user experience, the LCP value should be within 2.5 seconds of the first page view.
Typically, images or videos are used as elements for the Largest Contentful Paint. An element is not considered an LCP until it is fully rendered and visible to the user.
This metric is also related to the First Contentful Paint (FCP), which measures the time it takes to render the initial DOM content. However, unlike FCP, LCP takes into account the time it takes to render the largest and most significant content on the page.
- What LCP stands for: The perceived loading time from the user’s perspective.
- What is measured: The point in the page load timeline at which the largest image or block of text appears in the visible area.
- How it’s measured: Lighthouse collects LCP data using the Chrome Tracing tool.
First Input Delay (FID)
The First Input Delay (FID) measures the interactivity of a website and focuses on input events such as clicks, taps, and button presses. When a website doesn’t respond quickly after a user interaction, users perceive it as a delay or slowdown. For a good user experience, the FID of your web pages should be 100 milliseconds or less.
- What FID stands for: Your user’s first impression of your website’s interactivity and responsiveness.
- What is measured: The time from when a user first interacts with your website (e.g. clicking a link, tapping a button, or using a custom JavaScript control) to when the browser can actually respond to that interaction.
- How it is measured: FID requires real user interactions, so it cannot be measured in the lab. However, the Total Blocking Time (TBT) metric is measurable in the lab and correlates well with FID in the field. Optimizations that improve TBT should also improve FID in the field.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS measures the visual stability of a website. A good CLS score is 0.1 or less to ensure that users don’t experience unexpected layout changes. This is less of a measure of page speed and more of an indicator that your website is following best practices, which is important for a high performance score.
These best practices include adhering to common UX patterns that are optimized for CLS. When loading the page, size attributes should always be set or placeholders reserved to prevent the page from stuttering and shifting during interaction.
Your website should not insert new content on top of existing content unless the user expects it through their interaction. When making layout changes during the interaction, use transform animations to ensure stability.
- What CLS stands for: The visual stability of a page. Instability means unexpected movements of page content during user interaction.
- What it measures: CLS measures the largest increase in layout move values for each unexpected layout change over the lifetime of a page. A layout shift occurs when a visible element changes its position between two rendered frames.
- How it is measured: To calculate the layout shift score, the browser looks at the size of the viewport and the movement of unstable elements in the viewport between two rendered frames. The layout shift score is the product of two units of measurement of this movement: the impact fraction and the distance fraction.
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Measures the time to render the first DOM content
- What it stands for: The time it takes for the browser to display the first DOM content after a user enters your page.
DOM content includes images, non-white
<canvas>elements, and SVGs on your page. - What it measures: FCP is a user-centric metric that measures perceived charging speed. It marks the first point in the page load timeline where the user can see something on the screen.
- How it’s measured: The FCP score compares your page’s FCP time to the FCP times of real websites, based on data from the HTTP archive.
Speed Index (SI)
- What it stands for: The average time that visible parts of the page are displayed.
- What it measures: The Speed Index measures how quickly content appears visually when a page loads. Lighthouse creates a video of the page load and calculates the visual progress between frames.
- How it’s measured: The Speed Index score compares your page’s speed index with the indexes of real websites, based on data from the HTTP archive.
Total blocking time (TBT)
- What it stands for: The total amount of time a page is prevented from responding to user input, such as mouse clicks, screen taps, or keyboard input.
- What it measures: TBT measures the time between First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Time to Interactive (TTI). It is the laboratory equivalent of the First Input Delay (FID) used in the Chrome User Experience Report field data and Google’s Page Experience ranking signal.
- How it is measured: TBT calculates the total amount of time that the main thread is blocked from tasks that take longer than 50 ms. If a task takes 80 ms to complete, 30 ms of that time is counted towards the TBT. If a task lasts 45 ms, 0 ms is added to the TBT.
Time to first byte (TTFB)
Time to First Byte (TTFB) is a fundamental metric that measures the time between when a resource is requested and when the first byte of the response is received. It helps determine if a web server is too slow to respond to requests.
TTFB consists of the following phases of the requirement:
- Redirection time
- Service worker start time (if applicable)
- DNS lookup
- Connection and TLS negotiation
- Time from request to arrival of first byte of response
Tools to measure and report Core Web Vitals
Google believes that the Core Web Vitals are critical to all web experiences. That’s why it’s committed to publishing these metrics across all of its tools. Tools that support Core Web Vitals include PageSpeed Insights and Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report. There are a number of other tools for developers, but they are not suitable for the normal website user.
Note (Update October 2024): We update this page again and again and adapt it to the current developments in Internet technology. Performance optimization is a constantly changing process. New technologies then require a rethink in terms of performance. Our suggestions and tips are always kept up to date here. It is therefore worthwhile to visit this page from time to time.
