My website is slow. How do I make it faster?

Measure before you change anything

1. 1Open pagespeed.web.dev and enter your home page and one or two important inner pages.
2. 2Look at the mobile tab first, since most visitors and Google's evaluation lean on mobile.
3. 3Note the Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the main content appears), Interaction to Next Paint (how quickly the page responds to taps) and Cumulative Layout Shift (how much things jump around).
4. 4Read the Opportunities and Diagnostics lists; they name the specific files and images slowing the page.

Fixes you can usually do yourself

• Images: resize photos to the size they are displayed at, compress them, and use modern formats such as WebP where your platform supports it.
• Plugins and apps: deactivate and delete WordPress plugins or Shopify apps you no longer use, since many add scripts to every page.
• Caching: on WordPress, use a caching plugin or the caching your host provides; hosted platforms like Shopify and Wix handle this for you.
• Third-party scripts: remove old chat widgets, tracking pixels and embeds you do not need.
• Videos: embed them from YouTube or Vimeo with a lightweight preview instead of autoplaying large files.

Hosting and setup

If PageSpeed Insights reports a slow server response time, the hosting itself may be the bottleneck, which no amount of image tuning will fix. Choosing hosting with servers near your customers, adding a CDN, and keeping PHP or your platform version up to date often helps. Heavy page builders and bloated themes can also be a root cause.

Keep it fast

Test again after every change so you know what actually helped, and check speed whenever you add a new plugin, app or tracking script. A fast site can become slow again over a few months of small additions.