Google Page Speed Insights is an analysis tool. It provides information about the speed and, more recently, user friendliness of websites. In the past I have optimized a lot on many projects, often for hours or even days. On this new website, I wanted to make Page Speed a matter of course. I am doing this from the start, even though it is not a simple website, but does the following:
- The site is a full-fledged learning management system. It’s a course platform.
- jodeleit.com is also a complete e-commerce solution. This WordPress site enables the purchase of courses and coaching. It is also providing correct international invoicing.
- In addition, it is a membership site with sophisticated rights management.
I’m happy about the cool performance: Top scores on both Google Page Speed Insights and GTmetrix. Both tests are anything but easy to pass with good results. A series of measures made it possible to optimize both function and speed.
- Choosing a sleek WordPress theme (in this case: Astra Pro). I really appreciate multifunctional themes like Divi. Of course I like to use them as the holder of a lifetime license. But Gutenberg has meanwhile blossomed into a flexible editor. The Astra WordPress theme is very feature-rich, especially in the Pro version. During my short trial of GeneratePress, I did not like the pricing policy. You have to get a premium license for tasks which are a matter of course. So I switched to Astra.
- Use of caching wherever possible with an e-commerce and membership site. Of course there are challenges. But I solved them.
- Good hosting – of course.
- Outsourcing of static HTML to the Cloudflare Edge Network. We achieved this with the help of Cloudflare Workers. This works in two ways. One costs 5 to 20 USD per month. This relies on an official plugin from Cloudflare. The other solution does not need a paid service. It gets by with the Cloudflare Free Tier, as long as there are no more than 100,000 requests per day. And should I pass this limit at some point, the costs are still moderate.
So – Pagespeed not only works with a jamstack-like HTML construct on a Caddy web server (that’s another topic), but also with WordPress. Still. That’s good, and I wanted to share that.
