10 WordPress Performance Optimisations That Cut Load Time in Half

Why WordPress Gets Slow

WordPress is fast out of the box. Most performance problems come from poorly configured hosting, unoptimised images, too many plugins, and missing caching.

1. Enable Server-Side Page Caching

This is the single biggest win. Without caching, WordPress runs PHP and queries MySQL for every page request. With caching, it serves a pre-built HTML file 10-100x faster.

Install LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket.

2. Use a CDN

A Content Delivery Network serves your static files from servers close to your visitor. Cloudflare free tier works for most sites.

3. Optimise and Compress Images

Convert to WebP format which is 30% smaller than JPEG. Use lazy loading to only load images when they scroll into view.

4. Minimise and Defer JavaScript

JavaScript blocks page rendering. Deferring non-critical scripts means the browser shows your page to users before finishing JS execution.

5. Remove Unused Plugins

Every active plugin adds PHP overhead on every page load. Audit your plugins and delete anything not actively needed.

6. Upgrade Your Hosting

All the optimisation in the world cannot fix a slow server. If your TTFB is consistently over 500ms after caching, your host is the bottleneck.