How to Speed Up Your WordPress Website (Mobile + Desktop)

I was always wary about the speed of my WordPress website and researching ways to improve it. I found a few useful tips, but my goal was to find a solution that was efficient, cost-effective and gave quick results. Thankfully, I found a hidden tool in the WordPress plugin directory that made my job easy.

To speed up your WordPress website, use the NitroPack plugin. It automates optimization for both mobile and desktop, improving loading times significantly without manual intervention. NitroPack requires minimal setup, making it a user-friendly solution for enhancing site performance.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the installation process of NitroPack and how you can use it to speed up your WordPress site.

1. Check your website speed

Before fixing the site load speed, it is important to analyze the current metrics to determine how your website is currently performing.

While there are many site performance checking tools to check site speed, I always prefer Google PageSpeed Insights for its user-friendliness and comprehensive view.

To check your website’s performance, visit the Google PageSpeed Insights tool -> enter your website’s URL -> click ‘Analyze.’

This will pull up the site speed metrics of your website. Here’s how it looks for my website:

On the first fold of the screen, you’ll see the Core Web Vitals Assessment metrics. While they are important for determining the user experience, it is important to note that they are measured over the last 28 days.

Since I am looking for quick improvements, I will focus on the metrics on the second fold, “Diagnose performance issues.”

Here, you can toggle between Desktop and Mobile to check your site’s scores across 4 categories:

• Performance
• Accessibility
• Best Practices
• SEO

Diagnosing your site speed report

Upon a quick assessment, I see two major issues I must fix immediately: First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).

For starters, FCP measures the time it takes for your website to display the first bit of content on your web pages. It’s a great metric for site speed as it reflects how quickly your website displays data to visitors.

Currently, my website averages around 3 seconds for FCP on mobile and 1.2 seconds on desktop. This is not great as the ideal FCP range, as seen in the image above, is within 1.8 seconds. That’s the range we should be aiming for.

Unlike FCP, LCP measures the time it takes your website to display the largest bit of content on your website. For most websites, this could be a heavy image, like a complex infographic. In my case, this could be the video tutorials I upload.

My website averages around 6.5 seconds for LCP on mobile and 3.3 seconds on desktop; the ideal LCP range is within 2.5 seconds. Looks like I have got some serious work to do.

Pro tip: Pay close attention to the Timelapse section as you scroll – it’s a key indicator of your website’s loading speed. A fully optimized site will display identical frames in the Timelapse, showcasing a smooth and consistent loading experience.

2. Install the NitroPack plugin

Now that I have diagnosed the problems, it’s time to fix them.

I’m sure you’ve heard of traditional site speed optimization methods like changing the hosting provider, removing inactive plugins, compressing images, etc. Most of these methods require manual input and can take several hours.

Lucky for you, I found a WordPress plugin that automatically optimizes your website performance with a single click. It’s called NitroPack. And guess what? You can get started for free!

To install NitroPack on WordPress, log in to your WordPress dashboard. Go to Plugins -> Add New Plugin -> Search for NitroPack -> Click on “Install Now” -> Activate.

The next step is to connect your website with NitroPack to use it fully.

Find the NitroPack plugin in your “Plugins” tab on WordPress. Click “Settings.”

Complete the sign-up process by choosing a plan. The Free plan is perfect for those who want to test the waters.

Note that the free plan lets you connect up to three websites to the plugin, with 1 GB of CDN bandwidth and up to 5,000 page views/mo.

With that, your WordPress website is now connected to NitroPack.

3. Recheck WordPress site speed

Now, recheck your WordPress site performance using Google PageSpeed insights.

I did, and just look at the results I got: