Google Page Speed Insights is an analysis tool that provides information about the speed and, more recently, usability of websites. In the past, I’ve done a lot of optimization on many projects, often for hours or even days. On this new website, I wanted to make Page Speed a matter of course from the start, even though it’s not “just” a simple website, but does the following:
- The site is a full-fledged learning management system: a course platform with everything.
- jodeleit.com is also a complete e-commerce solution and enables the purchase of courses and coaching including correct international invoicing.
- In addition, it is a membership site with sophisticated rights management.
Patting yourself on the back is one of those things that doesn’t always go down well. That’s why I look a bit embarrassed in the round, while I’m publicly happy about the cool performance: maximum scores in both Google Page Speed Insights and GTmetrix. Both tests are anything but easy to pass with good results, but a number of measures made it possible to optimize function and speed on both.
- Choice of a slim WordPress theme (in this case: Astra Pro). I appreciate multi-functional themes like Divi and, as a lifetime license holder, I like to use them. But Gutenberg has become an extremely flexible editor, and Astra is so flexible in the Pro version that after a short excursion to GeneratePress, whose pricing policy I did not like at all (premium license for self-evident), I appoint Astra as my current favorite theme.
- Use caching wherever possible on an e-commerce and membership site. Of course, there are a number of challenges here, but they can be overcome.
- Good hosting – sure, I offer that myself, and there’s no “the cobblers wear the worst shoes.”
- Offloading static HTML to the Cloudflare Edge Network using Cloudflare Workers. This works in two ways: one costs 5 to 20 USD per month and relies on an official plugin from Cloudflare, the other, which is used here on jodeleit.com, does not require a paid service, but gets by with the Cloudflare Free Tier, as long as it is not more than 100,000 requests per day. And should I exceed this limit at some point, the additional costs are still moderate.
So – pagespeed is not only possible with a jamstack-like HTML construct on a caddy webserver (that’s another topic), but also with WordPress. Still. That’s good, and I thought I’d share that.
