Five Quick Fixes To Improve WordPress Site Performance

Start by using a free tool like GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights to baseline your site’s performance. The objective is achieving a PageSpeed score above 90 and good Core Web Vitals — these five practical fixes focus on the easier, less technical improvements you can make today.

1. Serve scaled images

Most websites display on screens up to ~1920×1080 pixels, so images shouldn’t exceed those dimensions. GTmetrix identifies the exact sizes needed for your image containers. A 600×400 container displaying a 6000×4000 source image wastes huge amounts of file size. Resizing your images before upload (in Preview, GIMP, or any image editor) can shave megabytes off your page weight.

2. Optimise your images

Use free tools like TinyPNG to compress already-sized images, reducing file sizes by up to 80% with minimal visual impact. TinyPNG lets you optimise 20 images at once on their website, or you can install their WordPress plugin to compress your entire media library automatically as you upload.

3. Specify image dimensions

Always declare width and height attributes on every <img> tag. This lets the browser reserve the correct space before the image loads, preventing layout shift and improving perceived speed. PageSpeed only credits dimensions specified via the image attributes themselves — CSS width: 600px doesn’t count.

4. Clean up your database and remove old revisions

WordPress automatically retains every previous version of a page or post as a “revision.” Over time these accumulate, bloat the database, and create compatibility issues. The WP-Optimize plugin removes that bloat — old revisions, trashed content, and spam comments.

Important: Back up your site before optimising your database. The process is irreversible.

5. Enable caching

Caching plugins create static versions of your pages, reducing render time. Three reliable options:

• WP Rocket (paid, very low setup effort)
• W3 Total Cache (free, more configuration)
• LiteSpeed Cache (free, requires LiteSpeed-compatible hosting)

Bonus: faster hosting often beats clever caching

If you’ve done all of the above and your site is still slow, the bottleneck is probably your host. We host WordPress sites locally in Perth specifically because the difference between a Perth server and an overseas server is the easiest 200–500ms of speed you can buy. See our Website Hosting page for what we run.