Do you have a slow WordPress site you want to make faster? WordPress speed optimization services are one of the available solutions that can help you boost the performance of your website.
Since optimizing WordPress sites for speed is a complicated process, many WordPress sites suffer from poor loading times, which hurts user experience, conversion rates, and search engine rankings.
In this article, we'll explore what WordPress speed optimization services are, look into the alternatives, and see a simple technique that can help you find a reliable service provider.
Why Is WordPress So Slow?
"Why is WordPress so slow?" is a question many WordPress users frequently ask. However, the WordPress software (a.k.a. the WordPress core) is not slow per se. What is slow is your WordPress site.
A WordPress site consists of multiple layers that all should be optimized for speed. It becomes slow when this multi-layer performance optimization doesn't happen at regular intervals.
A typical WordPress site is built up from the following layers, from bottom to top:
- Hosting environment:
- Operating system of the server (a Linux distro, e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc.)
- Web server software (Apache or NGINX)
- PHP programming language
- Database software (MySQL or MariaDB)
- WordPress core:
- Content management system (CMS)
- WordPress admin area
- Theme:
- Frontend presentation of the website
- Plugins:
- Additional functionality the WordPress core doesn't include (e.g. security, SEO, eCommerce, marketing, caching, etc.)
- Content:
- Blog posts, pages, images, videos, product pages, and other site content
For a WordPress site to run fast, all these layers must work together efficiently. Web performance issues can arise at any layer, and the layers also interact with each other. This calls for a comprehensive speed optimization strategy, and even more so for a more complex WordPress site.
What Are WordPress Speed Optimization Services?
WordPress speed optimization services are a type of maintenance service provided by companies that manage the day-to-day operations of WordPress sites. These businesses are called WordPress maintenance, care, or support agencies and typically charge a monthly fee for their services.
Their speed optimization services may include:
- Source code audits
- Image and media optimization
- Database optimization
- Caching implementation
- Optimization of third-party resources
- Configuration of the hosting environment
- Content delivery network (CDN) setup and configuration
- Uptime monitoring
- Real user monitoring (RUM)
- Core Web Vitals (CWV) optimization
- ...and others
All the speed optimization services above are ongoing services that need to be performed either continuously or periodically for a good result.
In addition to providing WordPress speed optimization services, WordPress maintenance agencies also take care of other aspects of your site's operations, which may include:
- security checks
- backups
- updates
- activity logging
- marketing
- content management
- eCommerce support
- ...and other maintenance services
How Can You Benefit from WordPress Speed Optimization?
WordPress speed optimization can improve various aspects of your website — not just the technical details or performance metrics, but also the bottom line.
Ongoing speed optimization will:
- enhance the user experience of your site, as your pages will load faster
- boost your search engine results, as your Core Web Vital scores will get better
- reduce your bounce rate, as fewer of your visitors will leave before the page content appears
- increase your conversion rate, as your users will be able to navigate your site without bumping into performance issues such as unresponsive pages
- ...etc.
When Do You Need WordPress Speed Optimization?
The simplest way to check whether you need WordPress speed optimization is by running a WordPress website speed test with our free tool.
You only need to enter the URL of the web page you want to test and click the Start Test button:
Let's see how to use our free WordPress website speed testing tool to decide whether your site needs speed optimization, using the homepage of wordpress.org as an example.
Once the test completes, the first screen you'll encounter is the Overview page, where you can view the overall CrUX Score and Lab Score of the tested page — both of which should be ideally above 75%. If they are lower than that, it's recommended that you start optimizing your WordPress site for performance, by either hiring a WordPress speed optimization service provider or using an alternative method (which we'll discuss below).
Below the Page Speed Report summary, the Metric Overview shows the performance metrics for the current speed test run — green scores mean a good, yellow means a needs-improvement, and red means a poor result.
For example, wordpress.org's homepage received a green score for all the metrics in the current run, thus its Lab Score is 99%, which is an excellent result. The CrUX Score is slightly below 75% (i.e., 71%), which means that the homepage could use a bit of performance optimization:
You can check the detailed CrUX scores from the Web Vitals menu, which shows the 28-day aggregated averages of the same web performance metrics from the Chrome User Experience (CrUX) Report.
The CrUX data is gathered by Google from Chrome browser users who have opted into metrics collection. It shows what your average website visitor experienced when they visited your website throughout the last 28 days. This is also what is included in Google's search engine algorithm, so it's important to improve your CrUX scores.
In the screenshot below, you can see WordPress.org's CrUX results.
If you click the Origin tab, you'll see the results for the entire domain, while the URL tab shows the CrUX scores for the individual page you tested (in our example, this is the homepage). For a fast WordPress site, the three Core Web Vitals (i.e., Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and Interaction to Next Paint) should all get the green score in the CrUX Report — which happens in the case of the wordpress.org origin domain:
In addition to your homepage, it's also a good idea to run a WordPress speed test for your key pages, such as your landing pages and contact form, to see how your WordPress site performs overall for Core Web Vitals and other metrics.
Alternatives to WordPress Optimization Services
Before looking into how to find the best WordPress speed optimization service, let's see what alternatives you have if you want to improve the performance of your WordPress website.
Use Speed Optimization Plugins
If you prefer to DIY, you can install the following types of speed optimization plugins:
- A caching plugin, such as WP Rocket or WP Fastest Cache
- A database optimization plugin, such as WP-Optimize or Advanced Database Cleaner
- A code optimization plugin, such as Asset CleanUp or Autoptimize
- An image optimization plugin, such as Imagify or EWWW Image Optimizer
For a high-performing WordPress site, it's recommended to limit the number of plugins you use. When choosing your speed optimization plugins, pay attention to overlapping functionality (e.g. some caching plugins come with image optimization features, so you may not need both).
To ensure your website consistently scores well on Core Web Vitals:
- Either check your most important pages with our free WordPress speed testing tool regularly,
- Or set up performance monitoring to automatically run speed tests from multiple locations around the world:
Sign Up for a Managed WordPress Hosting Plan
There are two main types of WordPress hosting:
- Self-managed WordPress hosting, where you handle all the maintenance tasks of your WordPress site, such as updates, security, performance, SEO, etc.
- Managed WordPress hosting, where the web host manages most or all of these tasks for you, usually at a higher monthly fee.
Managed WordPress hosting plans often include speed optimization services such as caching, code optimization, CDN integration, image optimization, and others. However, the specific services vary by hosting provider, so be sure to review and compare them to find the one that best fits your needs.
Currently, the best managed WordPress hosts are Rocket.net, Kinsta, and Cloudways.
If your site has performed well on our free WordPress speed test, signing up for a managed WordPress hosting plan might be all you need.
Hire a Web Performance Consultant
If you don't want to pay for WordPress speed optimization services on a monthly basis but still need someone who audits and optimizes your site for web performance, you can also consider hiring a WordPress performance consultant.
A WordPress performance consultant is a web developer with expertise in both WordPress development and web performance optimization. They inspect your website for performance issues, make recommendations for improvements, and implement those changes.
You have several options to find a skilled professional:
- Search for their websites on Google or other search engines.
- Search for them on social media platforms such as X, Linkedin, or Mastodon.
- Find one on a freelancer platform such as Upwork or Freelancer.
- Find one on Codeable, which is a WordPress-only freelance developer platform.
- Check out our list of recommended web performance consultants.
You'll typically pay a web performance consultant an hourly rate. However, estimating the total cost of their services based on hourly rate can be difficult, as a more experienced consultant may resolve your issues faster and deliver better or longer-lasting results. Due to this, a consultant with a lower hourly rate can end up being more expensive.
If you hire a web performance consultant on a one-off basis, it's crucial to regularly test your key pages for speed to quickly identify any new performance issues that could potentially slow your site down.
How to Find the Best WordPress Speed Optimization Services?
Since WordPress speed optimization services are typically part of broader WordPress maintenance plans, the ideal one for you will also include other services you need, such as updates, hosting, security, backups, and more.
To find a good WordPress speed optimization service, look for a plan that comes with some kind of web performance guarantee, such as a Core Web Vitals promise, which ensures your site achieves good scores for those metrics. You should also receive regular reports detailing the optimization work done and how it has improved the web performance and user experience of your site.
Avoid WordPress maintenance agencies that promote established technologies as an extra or premium feature (e.g. support for the widely-used HTTP/2 protocol), have unreasonable pricing (whether very cheap or expensive), or lack WordPress-specific development experience.
Most importantly, test whether the website of the service provider has good results on the most important web performance metrics and steer clear of companies that offer WordPress speed optimization services but couldn't properly optimize their own site.
To see how to do this, here are two real-world examples:
Two Examples of How to Assess WordPress Speed Optimization Services
We tested the websites of two WordPress maintenance agencies (SiteCare and WP Buffs) using the following methodology:
- We ran a performance audit with our free WordPress website speed tester on the homepage of the service provider's website.
- In the Web Vitals tab, we checked data from the Chrome User Experience Report.
- We reviewed how the origin scored for the three Core Web Vitals.
You can also check other web performance signals if you want, such as the results of the current speed test (available from the Overview menu) or the request waterfall chart (available from the Requests menu).
Don't worry too much about smaller performance issues, as CrUX scores are also influenced by the local environment of website visitors (e.g. network conditions or device type) and the performance of third-party scripts running on the website for social media embeds, ads, analytics, etc.
However, to find a good WordPress speed optimization service provider, make sure that the origin has consistently scored well for the three Core Web Vitals.
Example 1: SiteCare
As you can see above, SiteCare has achieved green scores for all three Core Web Vitals in the CrUX Report.
While First Contentful Paint (FCP) received a yellow (needs-improvement) score, this metric is not part of Google's search engine algorithm. FCP is the initial part of Largest Contentful Paint, which has consistently scored well over the last 25 weeks (you can see the 25-week trendline below the current CrUX results).
In short, SiteCare could consistently optimize their own website for speed.
Example 2: WP Buffs
WP Buffs has only achieved green scores for Cumulative Layout Shift and Interaction to Next Paint in the CrUX Report. However, they received a red (poor) score for Largest Contentful Paint, which has remained consistent over the last 25 days.
This result raises serious questions about WP Buffs' speed optimization services and whether website performance is something they continuously pay attention to.
Get Started with WordPress Speed Optimization: A Simple Action Plan
To assess whether you need a WordPress speed optimization service and, if so, find the best provider for your needs, here's a simple action plan:
- Run a free WordPress website speed test for your homepage and key pages.
- Based on the results, decide whether you need an ongoing WordPress speed optimization service, or if you'd rather use one of the alternatives to improve your site's performance.
- If you decide to give a try to WordPress speed optimization services, look for WordPress maintenance agencies that offer them, using search engines, social media, or personal recommendations.
- Review their offerings and compare their plans to find one that fits your needs.
- If you find a WordPress maintenance agency with a suitable plan, run a free WordPress website speed test for their homepage.
- Check whether the origin has consistently scored well for the three Core Web Vitals over the last 25 weeks.
- If yes, proceed to start a free trial or sign up for a subscription with the selected company.
That's all! Happy WordPress speed optimization!