How to make WordPress faster and improve per­form­ance

Fast and func­tion­al pages are not only a plus in terms of usability and user ex­per­i­ence – speed naturally also in­flu­ences search engine rankings. To optimise WordPress per­form­ance, there are practical ex­ten­sions, tools, and simple tricks.

How fast is my website?

Before op­tim­ising, you should know the current state. These tools help you analyse the load time and technical per­form­ance of your WordPress website:

Google PageSpeed Insights

The tool Google PageSpeed Insights analyses both the mobile and desktop versions of your website and provides specific sug­ges­tions for im­prove­ment. The report includes values for user ex­per­i­ence and technical per­form­ance. Rating cat­egor­ies: ‘Passed’, ‘Im­prove­ment Re­com­men­ded’, ‘Im­prove­ment Needed’.

Advantage: direct re­com­mend­a­tions from Google

Dis­ad­vant­age: no absolute load times

GTmetrix

GTmetrix provides a technical analysis with pri­or­it­isa­tion of problem areas. This tool is ideal for quickly identi­fy­ing bot­tle­necks and ad­dress­ing them.

Advantage: very clear, suitable for beginners

Dis­ad­vant­age: less in-depth metrics than WebPa­geTest

WebPa­geTest

WebPa­geTest is a pro­fes­sion­al tool with in-depth analysis for First Con­tent­ful Paint (FCP), Time to In­ter­act­ive (TTI), and more.

Advantage: very detailed

Dis­ad­vant­age: more complex user interface

Pingdom Website Speed Test

Beginner-friendly and visually un­der­stand­able, Pingdom shows you in­form­a­tion about your WordPress site such as load time, page size, and number of HTTP requests.

Advantage: quick results, easy to use

Dis­ad­vant­age: less technical depth

IONOS Website Checker

The Website Checker from IONOS is a free tool that analyses your site’s speed, search engine friend­li­ness, and security.

Advantage: easy to use, with ac­tion­able re­com­mend­a­tions. Ideal for IONOS customers.

5 Tips to Improve WordPress Per­form­ance

Tip 1: Optimise and compress images

Large image files are one of the most common per­form­ance killers. Use tools and WordPress plugins like:

• TinyPNG: Online tool for lossless com­pres­sion of PNG and JPG files
• Smush: Auto­mat­ic­ally optimises images when uploading
• EWWW Image Optimizer: Offers ad­di­tion­al options like WebP con­ver­sion
• a3 Lazy Load: Delays image loading until scrolling; ideal for image-heavy pages

Tip 2: Minimise CSS and JavaS­cript files

Un­ne­ces­sary code slows down page loading. To prevent this, use the following WordPress per­form­ance plug-ins:

• CSS Minifier: Reduces CSS files to the es­sen­tials
• JavaS­cript Minifier: Minimises JavaS­cript files for faster load times
• Asset CleanUp: Disables un­ne­ces­sary scripts on pages where they’re not needed

Tip 3: Use caching

WordPress caching plugins save pages stat­ic­ally and drastic­ally reduce load time. Popular options for op­tim­ising WordPress per­form­ance:

• LiteSpeed Cache: Com­pre­hens­ive solution including CDN in­teg­ra­tion and image op­tim­isa­tion
• W3 Total Cache: Highly con­fig­ur­able, suitable for ex­per­i­enced users
• WP Super Cache: Simple, stable caching plugin for beginners

Tip 4: Clean up the database

Over time, un­ne­ces­sary clutter builds up in the database: revisions, spam comments, deleted posts. Popular tools for cleanup include:

• WP-Optimize: Combines database op­tim­isa­tion, image com­pres­sion, and caching
• WP-Sweep: Safely and thor­oughly deletes un­ne­ces­sary database entries
• Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions: Spe­cial­ises in removing revisions

Tip 5: Avoid un­ne­ces­sary plugins

Too many plugins slow down your site. Use the following tools to find out which ex­ten­sions are the biggest bot­tle­necks:

• Query Monitor: Shows database queries, PHP errors, and plugin impacts in real time
• Plugin Organizer: Allows you to se­lect­ively enable/disable plugins depending on the page

Advanced WordPress Op­tim­isa­tion

Hosting & Tech­no­logy

Good WordPress hosting is the found­a­tion for per­form­ance and primarily means fast, secure, and stable server tech­no­logy tailored spe­cific­ally to WordPress re­quire­ments. Key criteria:

• Up-to-date PHP version (at least PHP 8.1)
• HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
• SSDs & caching support
• Server location close to the target audience

IONOS Hosting for WordPress offers an in­teg­rated online store based on WordPress.

Use a CDN

A Content Delivery Network dis­trib­utes content globally and sig­ni­fic­antly reduces load times. Cloud­flare is a free CDN with per­form­ance and security features.

Use the Block Editor instead of a Page Builder

The WordPress Gutenberg block editor has been the default editor since WordPress 5 and is a modern, native solution for content creation. Compared to tra­di­tion­al page builders like Elementor or WPBakery, the block editor offers several ad­vant­ages:

For a sus­tain­able, high-per­form­ance, and future-proof website, the block editor is usually the better choice – es­pe­cially when you want to optimise WordPress per­form­ance.

Op­tim­ising your WordPress per­form­ance pays off multiple times: faster load times, better rankings, and happier users. Many of the tools presented can be used even without pro­gram­ming knowledge. With just a few measures, you can achieve no­tice­able im­prove­ments. Use targeted WordPress tuning measures and rely on the right WordPress per­form­ance plugin to succeed in the long run.