Website performance checklist
A practical checklist of the most important actions to keep your website fast — for both your team and your web developers.
Use this checklist to audit your site's performance, whether you are doing a routine check or preparing for a redesign or marketing campaign.
Quick summary
The highest-impact actions are: measure your current speed, optimize images before uploading, ensure caching is active, review third-party scripts, and use managed hosting. Everything else is incremental improvement on top of those fundamentals.
How to use this checklist
Some items are things you can do yourself. Others are for your web team. The checklist is divided into sections so you can hand off the right parts to the right people.
Beginner items are things most non-technical team members can do. Developer items require technical access or knowledge.
Measurement (do this first)
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Test your homepage with PageSpeed Insights Beginner Visit pagespeed.web.dev and test your home page. Note the Core Web Vitals status (green/orange/red) and the overall score.
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Test your most important landing pages Beginner Your homepage may score well, but key product or service pages may have different images and scripts. Test at least three pages.
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Check your Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console Developer If you have Search Console set up, check the Core Web Vitals report. It shows real visitor data, not just a simulated test.
Images
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No image is larger than 2 MB Beginner Check your media library (in WordPress, go to Media). If you see images over 2 MB, they should be compressed or replaced.
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Images are sized to their display dimensions Beginner A thumbnail does not need to be a 4,000-pixel-wide original. Resize images before uploading.
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Images are in WebP or compressed JPEG format Developer An image optimization plugin or manual conversion handles this. WebP is the best choice for most images.
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Images have descriptive alt text Beginner Alt text helps accessibility and SEO. See Alt text explained.
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Lazy loading is enabled Developer Modern WordPress handles this automatically. Confirm it is not disabled by a plugin or theme.
Caching
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Caching is active Developer Either a caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, etc.) or your host's built-in caching should be running. Verify with your web team.
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Cache clears correctly after updates Developer When you publish a change, the cached version should update. Test this: publish a small change and check if it appears for a logged-out visitor within a few minutes.
Hosting
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Time to First Byte (TTFB) is under 800 ms Developer Check this in PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. A TTFB over 1 second points to a hosting problem.
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You are on managed WordPress hosting (if on WordPress) Beginner Ask us if you are not sure. Managed hosts (Flywheel, WP Engine, Kinsta) include built-in caching and CDNs.
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A CDN is active Developer Ask your host or development team. Most managed hosting plans include one.
Scripts and plugins
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Review all active plugins Developer Remove or deactivate any plugin that is no longer used. Unused active plugins are a security risk and can slow things down.
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Identify third-party scripts Developer List all external scripts running on the site (Google Analytics, chat widgets, social share buttons, pixels, heatmaps). Remove any that are no longer needed.
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No duplicate functionality Developer Two caching plugins, two SEO plugins, two contact form plugins — any duplication wastes resources and creates conflict risk.
Fonts
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Use a maximum of two typefaces Beginner More than two font families is usually unnecessary and slows font loading.
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Load only the font weights you use Developer A Google Fonts embed should load only Regular, Bold, and Italic — not all available weights "just in case."
Mobile
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Test on a real mid-range Android device Beginner Your iPhone may not reflect the experience of budget phone users. Borrow a mid-range Android (or ask us to test) to see what average visitors experience.
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Mobile Core Web Vitals are green Beginner Switch to the Mobile tab in PageSpeed Insights. Mobile scores are the ones Google uses for ranking.
Ongoing habits
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Compress images before every upload Beginner Make this a habit. See Images & page speed.
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Check performance after major updates Beginner After a redesign, a new plugin installation, or a major content change, re-run PageSpeed Insights.
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Run a performance review every six months Beginner Sites accumulate weight over time. A periodic check catches problems before they become serious.
Common questions
Related guides
- How to measure your site's speed
- Images & page speed
- Caching explained
- Performance: realistic expectations
- Website health checklist
Need a hand?
Learn more
Performance: realistic expectations
What a good performance score actually looks like, why perfect scores are not always possible or necessary, and how to set realistic goals.
Performance terms, explained simply
A plain-English glossary of website speed and performance jargon — from bandwidth to Time to First Byte to render-blocking resources.