Website Speed Checklist: 12 Quick Wins for a Faster Site

Visitors decide within seconds whether a page is worth waiting for. Speed also feeds into Google’s page experience signals. This checklist covers improvements that most sites can make without a full rebuild.

Images

• Resize images to the size they are actually displayed.
• Use modern formats such as WebP where possible.
• Lazy-load images below the fold.
• Never upload a 5 MB photo straight from a camera.

Code and files

• Combine and minify CSS and JavaScript files.
• Remove plugins, scripts and fonts you do not use.
• Load non-essential scripts after the main content.
• Limit the number of font weights you load.

Server and delivery

• Turn on compression (Gzip or Brotli).
• Set browser caching for images, CSS and JavaScript.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) if your visitors are spread across regions.
• Choose hosting that matches your traffic, not just the lowest price.

Measure before and after with a free tool such as PageSpeed Insights, and fix the biggest problems first. Small changes add up: shaving a second off load time can noticeably improve engagement and conversions.