Google's research shows that if a page takes more than 3 seconds to load - then more than half of visitors simply leave. And even the most expensive ads won't save a site that is stalling
Good news: you don't have to be a programmer to speed up a website. Here are 7 proven tricks that will help make your site fast as lightning.
1. Optimize the image
Images are the champions of "eating" speed. They take up an average of 60–70% of a page's weight. If they are not optimized, the site will take a long time to load, even with good hosting.
🎯 What to do:
- Reduce the size to the real need (don't load a photo 4000×3000 px, 1200×800 pixels is enough for a blog).
- Use modern formats — WebP instead of JPEG or PNG. The WebP format compresses the image without much loss of quality and reduces the weight by 2–3 times.
- Online tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh can help you optimize a photo for free in a minute. For WordPress — it's the Smush or Imagify plugin.
- For icons, SVG is better (they scale without loss of quality and weigh pennies).
📊 Example: a page with 10 photos of 1MB each = 10MB. After optimizing to 200KB each — only 2MB. Load time drops from 5–6 sec to 1–2 sec.
2. Enable Caching
Caching is a copy of a page that the browser or server saves so that it doesn't reassemble the site every time you access it. It's faster and easier.
The types of caching:
- Browser cache - stores images, CSS and scripts in the visitor's browser.
- Server cache - saves the finished HTML page on the server.
- Object cache - speeds up work with a database (e.g. Redis or Memcached).
🎯 What to do without programming:
- If you have WordPress, install the WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache plugin.
- Most web hosts have “built-in caching” - just enable it in your control panel.
📊 Example: without cache the site with WordPress loads 3,5 s. After enabling the cache - 0.9 s.
3. Use a CDN
🎯 CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of mirrors for your website located on servers around the world.
How it works:
- Your site is stored on multiple servers (also called edge servers, i.e. “on the edges of the network”).
- When a user visits a site, the system determines their location.
- Content (images, scripts, styles, videos) is downloaded from the nearest server.
When to connect:
- If you have a lot of international visitors.
- If you have large images, videos, static files (CSS, JS)
Results:
- Page load time decreases by seconds (which is a huge difference on the web).
- The server where the “original” site is located is not overloaded - after all, the main part of traffic is given from copies.
- Even if one of the servers goes down, the user will not notice it, because the content will be available from the other.
Some of the popular services include Cloudflare (free starter plan), Amazon CloudFront, and Akamai.
📊 Example: A user from the USA without CDN gets a page from Ukraine in 2.8 s, with CDN - already in 1.1 s. Consequently, the data is loaded seconds faster. And that's without a single line of code on your part!
4. Get rid of unnecessary widgets and plugins
Many people think: "Oh, this plugin and this one - and the site will be cooler". But in practice, the more plugins - the more unnecessary requests to the database and scripts (and the harder the resource works). It's like carrying 10 bags instead of one.
🎯 What to do:
- Check which plugins you really need.
- Remove those that duplicate functions or haven't been updated in 1–2 years (they are also dangerous).
- Less widgets (such as counters, weather or unnecessary sliders) should also be removed.
📊 Example: A site with 25 plugins opened in 4.2s. After reducing it to 12 plugins, it took 1.7sec
5. Use compression (Gzip / Brotli)
Compression is kind of like packing a website into a “zip-archive” before sending it to the user.
The most common technologies:
- Gzip - classic compression, supported by all browsers.
- Brotli - newer algorithm from Google, compresses 15–20% better than Gzip.
🎯 What it does: it reduces the size of transferred files by 70–80%.
How to enable: most web hosts have a switch in the control panel (in cPanel/Plesk). If not, just contact your hoster's support.
📊 Example: a page weighing 2.5 MB after Brotli compression weighs 450 KB. The download time is reduced by 5 times.
6. Clean the database
Sites on WordPress and other CMSs (Content Management Systems) accumulate "garbage" over time: old drafts, deleted plugins, logs, spam comments, and more. This slows the site down.
🎯 What to do:
- For WordPress: use the WP-Optimize plugin or Advanced Database Cleaner. It will clean the database in a few clicks.
- If you have a different CMS, often the hosting company has the “Optimize Database” feature right in the panel.
📊 Example: The base on WordPress grew to 250 MB. After the cleanup, it's down to 40 MB. Site response time dropped from 1.2s to 0.4s. As a result: the database became more compact, and the site delivers data faster.
7. Check speed and fix weaknesses
To know where the site is really “slow”, you need to test it.
🎯 Tools for testing:
- Google PageSpeed Insights is a free service from Google. Shows exactly what is slowing down the site.
- GTmetrix - detailed reports and graphs with load times, page sizes, and recommendations.
- Pingdom Tools - simple test with basic tips.
What to test:
- Page size (optimally 2MB).
- Number of HTTP requests (100 is better).
- Time To First Byte (TTFB - should be 0.5 s).
📊 Example: GTmetrix showed that a 1.2 MB font delayed loading by 2 seconds. After replacing it with a lighter version, the site loaded twice as fast.
âš¡ By the way, don't be lazy to check the mobile version. More than half of the traffic comes from smartphones. And if on PC the site flies, on mobile it can “barely breathe”
🎯 What to do:
- Use Google Mobile Test or PageSpeed Insights.
- Turn on lazy load (images only load when you see them).
📊 Example: a store reduced the size of its mobile page from 12MB to 3MB and reduced customer churn by 25%.
As a conclusion
Boosting a website doesn't always mean spending thousands of dollars or months of programmers' time. All of these 7 tricks can be used without programming knowledge. And if you implement them together, the result is impressive: a site that used to take 5–6 seconds to load can actually be accelerated to 1–2 seconds. Most problems are solved in a few clicks: optimize photos, enable caching, connect CDN, remove unnecessary.
A faster website means more visitors, better positions in Google, and higher sales. So if your website is still "crawling like a snail" - use our tips, and soon it will take off like a rocket 🚀.
