“My site feels slow” is one of the most common things clients tell me, and it’s rarely one big problem. It’s usually three or four small ones stacked together. The good news is that most of them are fixable without rebuilding anything. Here are the causes I check, in the order I check them.
First, measure before you change anything
Run your homepage and one inner page through Google PageSpeed Insights. Look at the mobile result first, because that’s where most visitors are and where slow sites hurt most. Note the “Largest Contentful Paint” figure, which is how long the main content takes to appear. Google treats anything under about 2.5 seconds as good. Write your numbers down so you can tell later whether a change actually helped.
1. Oversized images
This is the most common cause by far. A photo straight from a phone or camera can be several megabytes, and it gets shown in a space a few hundred pixels wide. Resize images to roughly the size they’re displayed, save them as JPEG or WebP, and compress them. Make sure images below the fold load lazily (WordPress does this by default for most images). This one change often does more than everything else combined.
2. Cheap or overloaded hosting
If the server takes a long time to even start responding, no amount of image tuning will save you. Your hosting plan matters. Very cheap shared plans put many sites on one server, and yours slows down when its neighbours get busy. Check the “server response time” item in PageSpeed Insights. If it’s consistently slow, a better host is the fix, not another plugin.
3. No caching
Without caching, WordPress rebuilds each page from the database for every visitor. A caching setup saves a ready-made copy and serves that instead. Many hosts include server-level caching, and a single good caching plugin covers the rest. Use one, not several: stacking cache plugins causes odd bugs and rarely speeds things up.
4. Too many plugins, or the wrong ones
The number of plugins matters less than what they do. Ten lightweight plugins can be fine, while one heavy page builder add-on, slider or social feed can slow every page. Deactivate anything you don’t use, delete it rather than leaving it switched off, and be suspicious of plugins that load scripts on every page when they’re only needed on one.
5. A heavy theme or page builder
Multipurpose themes and layered page builders ship a lot of code for features you may never use. That code still has to download and run. If your site is simple, a lean theme will usually be noticeably faster. Replacing a theme is a bigger job, so I only recommend it once the cheaper fixes above are done and the site is still slow.
6. Third-party scripts and fonts
Chat widgets, tracking pixels, embedded videos and several font families each add requests to other servers, and you don’t control how fast those respond. Keep only what earns its place. Load fonts sparingly (one or two families, a few weights), and use a click-to-play preview for videos instead of loading the full player straight away.
7. Out-of-date software and a cluttered database
Old PHP versions are noticeably slower than current ones, and your host can usually switch the version in a couple of clicks (test first, as very old plugins can break). Over the years, databases also collect post revisions, spam comments and leftover data from deleted plugins. A periodic clean-up helps, although it’s rarely the main cause on its own.
A sensible order of attack
- Measure mobile speed and note the numbers.
- Fix the images.
- Turn on proper caching.
- Remove unused plugins and third-party scripts.
- Update PHP and WordPress, and check the hosting if the server itself is slow.
- Measure again and compare with your first numbers.
Be wary of anyone who promises a perfect 100 score. Scores vary between tests, and what matters is that real visitors see your pages quickly and don’t leave. If you’d like me to look at why your site is slow and tell you plainly what’s worth fixing, get in touch for a free consultation.
Once your pages load quickly, the next step is choosing keywords you can actually rank for. If you’d rather not work through this list yourself, my WordPress development services include speed audits and fixes. Keeping a fast site fast is part of ongoing care, so also read what WordPress maintenance you actually need, or get in touch and I’ll take a look at your site.