According to studies, if a site takes more than 3 seconds to open, half the visitors leave. Speed matters for both customers and SEO.
1. Compress images
Images are the "heaviest" part of a site. Compress them before uploading and use the modern WebP format.
2. Enable caching
Cache speeds up opening a page a second time. WordPress has caching plugins.
3. Choose fast hosting
If the server is slow, no optimization helps. The foundation is hosting with an SSD disk in a local data center.
4. Disable unnecessary plugins
Every plugin adds load. Remove the unused ones.
5. Reduce CSS and JS files
Minifying and combining code reduces the number of requests.
6. Use browser cache
Let static files (images, CSS) be stored in the visitor's browser.
7. Connect a CDN
A CDN stores your site's files on servers around the world and serves from the nearest one.
8. Measure the speed
Check your site with Google PageSpeed Insights and follow its recommendations.