Humans have an attention span of 8 seconds, which is less than that of a goldfish. So if you are developing a website, you need to get the WordPress loading speed as fast as possible, or your client's end-user might just make a beeline for their competitors.

Website speed optimisation should be your number one priority because it directly impacts your rankings on the SERP (search engine results page), as well as your bounce rate.

If you’re keen to learn how to get 90+ PageSpeed insights on WordPress, this article is for you. We’ve compiled some of the best ways to increase website speed to keep visitors hooked without compromising performance.

The Google PageSpeed test insight has three categories: red for bad (0-49 score), orange for acceptable (50-85 score), and green for excellent (86-100 score). You’ll learn how to increase your site’s WordPress loading speed to the excellent category with these tips.

Why is WordPress Loading Speed Important?

Before we get into how to get 90+ on PageSpeed insights on WordPress, it’s important that you understand why this score even matters.

Here are three key reasons why WordPress loading speed is important:

A website with a high loading speed creates a good impression on the site visitors. This makes it easier to acquire and retain customers.
Google considers loading speed an important factor while ranking websites on its search pages. If you want to organically grow the website’s position on the SERP, improve your WordPress loading speed.
A website’s speed will also impact the brand’s conversions and cart abandonment rates. These are two important metrics, especially for eCommerce stores.

How to Get 90+ on PageSpeed Insights on WordPress

Read on for the best tips for getting 90+ on PageSpeed Insights.

1. Optimise Images

One of the easiest ways to increase website speed is to optimise every image on the website, from product images to media on the home page and blog images.

High-definition pictures are often heavy, some measuring over 10 MBs. These will make your website laggy, especially for someone browsing on their phone.

Compress images to a file size smaller than 1 MB and also make sure that the images adapt to fit different screen sizes, making it easier for viewing across devices.

2. Use Fewer Plugins

We know that plugins make life easier, but they also impact website speed. As a web developer, you need to educate your clients about only choosing plugins that are absolutely necessary for them while foregoing the non-essential ones.

If you’re responsible for maintaining a website or performing site audits, check for unused plugins and delete them, not just deactivate them.

Sometimes, it’s better to write new codes than rely on plugins. This improves the website’s overall performance and speed.

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3. Implement Caching

Caching is one of the best methods of website speed optimisation. When you enable caching, a site visitor will often be served the static version of the website, improving the user experience and website load time.

There are multiple caches that you can implement when you’re developing a website, including:

Browser Caching: This is helpful for returning visitors. The browser will store static versions of images, CSS, and JavaScript files on the user’s local computer.
Page Caching: Here, static HTML versions of website pages are created, which reduces the need for WordPress to dynamically generate content every time a new visitor lands on the website.

Object caching and CDN caching are two other caching methods that can be implemented to improve the website load time.

4. Reduce or Optimise Render-Blocking Resources

Another top tip for anyone searching how to get 90+ PageSpeed insights on WordPress is to reduce or optimise the website’s render-blocking resources.

Render-blocking resources like CSS and JavaScript files prevent a page from loading until these files are downloaded and parsed by the browser. This can be time-consuming if the files are heavy or the user’s internet speed is compromised.

An easy hack to optimise render-blocking resources is to minify CSS and JavaScript files (whitespace, line breaks, and comments are removed), making the files much lighter. You can defer the JavaScript execution or enable asynchronous ‘async’ loading.

As a developer, you can also inline critical CSS (the page content above the fold) into the HTML directly. When you do this, the visible portion of the page loads faster, while the lower end of the page loading can be delayed, giving users an impression of a faster-loading webpage.

5. Optimise for Mobile Viewing

Google PageSpeed test insight returns two values, one for your desktop version and the other for your mobile version. It’s an open secret that Google now ranks websites based on their mobile versions. 90% of Brits are now using their smartphones to browse the internet, making mobile optimisation a must-have feature for web developers and business owners.

Make sure to use a responsive WordPress theme when you’re developing a website. This makes it easier for you to adapt webpages according to the screen size, giving users an uninterrupted experience across all devices.

QualityHive Helps Developers Complete Their Tasks Faster

We hope you’ve taken value from these tips for how to get 90+ PageSpeed insights on WordPress.

While these steps will make it easier for your client’s website to load faster, you may also be looking for additional solutions to make the web development process faster.

For this, we recommend QualityHive, one of the leading website feedback and bug tracking tools. Clients, product managers, and QAs can raise concerns with a single click, and your development team will have better clarity regarding the feedback. This helps you stay on top of any changes while streamlining the feedback process, making the development lifecycle much faster.

With QualityHive, you prevent miscommunication with easy screenshot captures, recordings, and browser information. You can categorise feedback based on urgency on the interactive Kanban board, and automatically capture JavaScript errors, making it easier to spot bugs and discrepancies.

Book a free demo to learn more about our tool and how it can help you.