m1zz
Established Member
- Impact
- 96
So, sharing is caring 
Thought it won't be worth just being a lurker (I just enjoy reading lol) and share some value with the rest of you guys.
I'm no expert with a 5th degree in anything, but have been around doing SEO and building websites for a while' and the most important thing is SPEED. It changed the whole user experience.
Soon enough the new Google Page Experience update is coming, and it's very much important for your website to be SUPER fast.
This method will help you get 95%-99% on Google Page Insights easy!
My home page is currently on 97% desktop, 91% mobile, with lots of compressed images, Elementor and other plugins. There are few more things I can optimise to improve it even further, but I am ok with having a not the fastest website rather then provide bad user experience increasing my websites bounce rate.
This is my own experience and trying to get the speed up without being too technical and how I achieved that step by step.
Stop using Shared Hosting
With new and easy cloud hosting solutions, stop using shared hosting for your sites. You will have some issues adapting to new interfaces but if it means a faster site, so be it. Better use Cloudways or if its too expensive, you can even go for Hostgator Cloud Business solution.
This site is hosted on Vultr $5 droplet with Runcloud, if you want more support can go with cloudways, if you have multiple sites can look at Gridplane for good support. I have only used Runcloud, its plan with unlimited servers is around $15 pm.
These are the steps in short of what needs to be done to achieve such speeds:
1. Cloudflare DNS (I only use DNS and not their CDN)
2. Runcloud + Vultr $5 Droplet (you can use high-frequency droplet with NVMe for even higher speeds at $6)
3. NGINX Native + FastCGI - don't worry about technical terms it's just click and go with Runcloud; its Runcloud hub plugin automatically does cache
4. Redis Object Cache - Do this only if you have a heavy DB frontends like woo commerce or your backend is slow and you want to speed it up
5. WP Rocket - This plugin is great. I have used Lightspeed cache plugin earlier, which was also good, but it doesn't cache on NGINX. If you have Litespeed server try litespeed cache instead of WP Rocket
6. Statically(dot)io Free CDN - This website does not use this CDN, but I have used it on another site, and it increases your score, especially if you have a worldwide audience. It's effortless to integrate and have easy-to-use plugin with few options.
*Make sure to use Astra theme, generatepress or Hello elementor. Don't use any other theme because from experience, they all look GREAT, but are not at all optimized for SEO, causing the website to break when adding other SEO plugins.
Thats it ! other than that you know general guidelines for having a fast website i.e.
1. Use Fast Theme - Currently using Kadence, Astra is also fine, I am also digging Neve as it doesn't require jquery
2. Use Minimum Plugins - Self-explanatory, I am using Elementor and pro and few block plugins on this site
Other Plugins for Optimising:
1. Perfmatters
Additional Service Required:
1. Mxroute - For emails. I use $45 per annum plan to handle all emails or all domains
2. Rackspace Email or any other email provider if you are ok with paying per email
Thought it won't be worth just being a lurker (I just enjoy reading lol) and share some value with the rest of you guys.
I'm no expert with a 5th degree in anything, but have been around doing SEO and building websites for a while' and the most important thing is SPEED. It changed the whole user experience.
Soon enough the new Google Page Experience update is coming, and it's very much important for your website to be SUPER fast.
This method will help you get 95%-99% on Google Page Insights easy!
My home page is currently on 97% desktop, 91% mobile, with lots of compressed images, Elementor and other plugins. There are few more things I can optimise to improve it even further, but I am ok with having a not the fastest website rather then provide bad user experience increasing my websites bounce rate.
This is my own experience and trying to get the speed up without being too technical and how I achieved that step by step.
Stop using Shared Hosting
With new and easy cloud hosting solutions, stop using shared hosting for your sites. You will have some issues adapting to new interfaces but if it means a faster site, so be it. Better use Cloudways or if its too expensive, you can even go for Hostgator Cloud Business solution.
This site is hosted on Vultr $5 droplet with Runcloud, if you want more support can go with cloudways, if you have multiple sites can look at Gridplane for good support. I have only used Runcloud, its plan with unlimited servers is around $15 pm.
These are the steps in short of what needs to be done to achieve such speeds:
1. Cloudflare DNS (I only use DNS and not their CDN)
2. Runcloud + Vultr $5 Droplet (you can use high-frequency droplet with NVMe for even higher speeds at $6)
3. NGINX Native + FastCGI - don't worry about technical terms it's just click and go with Runcloud; its Runcloud hub plugin automatically does cache
4. Redis Object Cache - Do this only if you have a heavy DB frontends like woo commerce or your backend is slow and you want to speed it up
5. WP Rocket - This plugin is great. I have used Lightspeed cache plugin earlier, which was also good, but it doesn't cache on NGINX. If you have Litespeed server try litespeed cache instead of WP Rocket
6. Statically(dot)io Free CDN - This website does not use this CDN, but I have used it on another site, and it increases your score, especially if you have a worldwide audience. It's effortless to integrate and have easy-to-use plugin with few options.
*Make sure to use Astra theme, generatepress or Hello elementor. Don't use any other theme because from experience, they all look GREAT, but are not at all optimized for SEO, causing the website to break when adding other SEO plugins.
Thats it ! other than that you know general guidelines for having a fast website i.e.
1. Use Fast Theme - Currently using Kadence, Astra is also fine, I am also digging Neve as it doesn't require jquery
2. Use Minimum Plugins - Self-explanatory, I am using Elementor and pro and few block plugins on this site
Other Plugins for Optimising:
1. Perfmatters
Additional Service Required:
1. Mxroute - For emails. I use $45 per annum plan to handle all emails or all domains
2. Rackspace Email or any other email provider if you are ok with paying per email
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