Grow path · Beginner to intermediate

Fast WordPress: Speed

Make your WordPress and Elementor site genuinely fast with a calm, safe, one-change-at-a-time process, then prove it with a before/after report.

Who this course is for

This course is for anyone who looks after a WordPress site and knows it is too slow: small business owners, freelancers building sites for clients, and in-house marketers. You might be seeing red scores in PageSpeed Insights, a "needs improvement" warning in Search Console, or a site that crawls on a phone. Maybe you have already tried a caching plugin, or two, and something broke. You will learn what to fix first, how to fix it, and how to check you have not broken anything along the way.

What you should know first

You need to be able to log in to the WordPress dashboard, install and switch off plugins, and edit a page. You also need admin access to a real WordPress site you are allowed to change, plus access to your hosting control panel. Module 6 uses Elementor. If you have never built a page in Elementor, take the Begin2Code Elementor Beginner course first, or alongside this one. You do not need to write code. Every technical term is explained the first time it appears.

By the end of the course you will be able to

Measure speed properly: explain the difference between lab and field data, read PageSpeed Insights and the Chrome UX Report (CrUX), and know the Core Web Vitals thresholds (LCP 2.5 s, INP 200 ms, CLS 0.1 at the 75th percentile).
Judge whether hosting is holding a site back, and choose sensible PHP, server and caching options.
Configure a caching plugin safely, including page caching and CSS and JavaScript optimisation, and test that nothing has broken.
Optimise images with modern formats (WebP and AVIF), correct sizing and lazy loading, and prioritise the image that controls your Largest Contentful Paint.
Load fonts and icons efficiently, remove the layout shifts they cause, and control third-party scripts such as chat widgets, maps and tracking tags.
Switch on Elementor's performance features safely and build pages that stay lightweight as the site grows.
Audit and remove plugin bloat, clean the database safely and put Cloudflare's free CDN in front of the site.
Write a clear before/after report, explain speed to clients and managers, and follow a simple routine that keeps the site fast.

Your course project

Throughout the course you speed up two sites side by side. Shaz demonstrates every step on Muddy Paws Dog Grooming, a fictional two-groomer salon in Harrogate, North Yorkshire (HG1), owned by Jess. Most of Jess's bookings start on a phone, so a slow mobile site costs her real customers. You then repeat each step on your own WordPress site.

The Muddy Paws site (example address muddypaws.co.uk) is built with WordPress and Elementor and has five pages: Home, Services & Prices, Gallery, Book a Groom and Contact. It has every problem you are likely to meet on a real small business site: a hero slider of huge photos, a before-and-after gallery, three Google Fonts, a booking plugin, a chat widget, a Google Maps embed, 31 plugins and no backups. Its starting baseline on the Home page, tested on mobile, is a Performance score of 38, a page weight of 3.8 MB, 112 requests and a Largest Contentful Paint of 5.2 seconds.

By the end you will have a recorded baseline and a working backup, a tuned PHP version, a safely configured cache, WebP and AVIF images, a prioritised LCP image, locally hosted fonts, controlled third-party scripts, Elementor's performance features switched on, fewer plugins, a clean database and Cloudflare in front of the site. You finish with a before/after report showing exactly what changed and why, the kind you can hand to a client or manager with confidence. Your finished project becomes your capstone, which Shaz reviews personally with written feedback.

Curriculum

Module 1: Measuring speed properly · 13 lessons
- 1.0 Course trailer and welcome
- 1.1 What you will build and how this course works
- 1.2 Why speed matters and what to expect
- 1.3 Core Web Vitals explained: LCP, INP and CLS
- 1.4 Lab data vs field data
- 1.5 Reading PageSpeed Insights line by line
- 1.6 Search Console's Core Web Vitals report and CrUX Vis
- 1.7 Chrome DevTools for beginners
- 1.8 Recording your baseline and backing up first
- 1.9 Project 1 brief: the Skein and Bobbin baseline
- 1.10 Project 1 solution: measuring and backing up Skein and Bobbin
- 1.11 Module 1 recap
- Module 1 worksheet
- Module 1 check (quiz)
Module 2: Hosting and the server · 10 lessons
- 2.0 Module intro and version check
- 2.1 Time to First Byte and why hosting matters
- 2.2 Types of hosting explained
- 2.3 PHP version, memory and server caching
- 2.4 Object caching with Redis, when your host offers it
- 2.5 When to change host, and moving without downtime
- 2.6 Project 2 brief: the Skein and Bobbin hosting check
- 2.7 Project 2 solution: TTFB tests, a PHP upgrade on staging and the hosting scorecard
- 2.8 Module 2 recap
- Module 2 worksheet
- Module 2 check (quiz)
Module 3: Caching plugins done safely · 11 lessons
- 3.0 Module intro and version check
- 3.1 How page caching works
- 3.2 Choosing a cache plugin
- 3.3 Configuring page and browser caching
- 3.4 CSS optimisation: minify, combine and unused CSS
- 3.5 JavaScript: defer and delay
- 3.6 Testing and troubleshooting after changes
- 3.7 Project 3 brief: the Skein and Bobbin cache set-up
- 3.8 Project 3 solution: one cache, configured and tested one setting at a time
- 3.9 Module 3 recap
- Module 3 worksheet
- Module 3 check (quiz)
Module 4: Images: formats, sizes and lazy loading · 11 lessons
- 4.0 Module intro and version check
- 4.1 Why images are usually the problem
- 4.2 Sizing and compressing before upload
- 4.3 WebP and AVIF in WordPress
- 4.4 Lazy loading done right
- 4.5 Prioritising the LCP image
- 4.6 Image dimensions and layout shift
- 4.7 Project 4 brief: the Skein and Bobbin image overhaul
- 4.8 Project 4 solution: resizing, converting and prioritising the Skein and Bobbin images
- 4.9 Module 4 recap
- Module 4 worksheet
- Module 4 check (quiz)
Module 5: Fonts, icons and third-party scripts · 11 lessons
- 5.0 Module intro and version check
- 5.1 How web fonts slow pages down
- 5.2 Hosting Google Fonts locally
- 5.3 Preloading fonts and avoiding font layout shift
- 5.4 Icon libraries
- 5.5 Third-party scripts: chat, maps, video and tags
- 5.6 Cookie banners, consent and speed
- 5.7 Project 5 brief: the Skein and Bobbin fonts and scripts clean-up
- 5.8 Project 5 solution: fonts local, icons trimmed and third parties tamed
- 5.9 Module 5 recap
- Module 5 worksheet
- Module 5 check (quiz)
Module 6: Elementor performance settings · 11 lessons
- 6.0 Module intro and version check
- 6.1 Why Elementor sites get slow, and why they do not have to
- 6.2 The Performance and Features settings
- 6.3 CSS print method, global styles and Site Settings
- 6.4 Containers instead of sections and columns
- 6.5 Add-on packs, animations and widgets to watch
- 6.6 Elementor and your cache plugin together
- 6.7 Project 6 brief: the Skein and Bobbin Elementor tune-up
- 6.8 Project 6 solution: settings, containers and add-ons on staging
- 6.9 Module 6 recap
- Module 6 worksheet
- Module 6 check (quiz)
Module 7: Plugin audit, database clean-up and CDN · 11 lessons
- 7.0 Module intro and version check
- 7.1 Running a plugin bloat audit
- 7.2 Measuring plugin impact
- 7.3 Database clean-up
- 7.4 WordPress housekeeping
- 7.5 What a CDN does and when you need one
- 7.6 Setting up Cloudflare (free plan)
- 7.7 Project 7 brief: the Skein and Bobbin plugin, database and CDN work
- 7.8 Project 7 solution: fewer plugins, a cleaner database and a CDN
- 7.9 Module 7 recap
- Module 7 worksheet
- Module 7 check (quiz)
Module 8: Before/after report and keeping it fast · 8 lessons
- 8.0 Module intro and version check
- 8.1 Re-testing properly
- 8.2 Writing the before/after report
- 8.3 Explaining speed to clients and managers
- 8.4 A speed maintenance routine
- 8.5 Project 8: the Skein and Bobbin before/after report, with a worked example
- 8.6 Module 8 recap
- Module 8 worksheet
- Module 8 check (quiz)
Module 9: Capstone, final exam and next steps · 7 lessons
- 9.0 Module intro
- 9.1 The capstone brief: what to submit and how it is marked
- 9.2 Planning your capstone safely: staging, the change log and the order of work
- 9.3 A worked example: the Skein and Bobbin capstone submission
- 9.4 Why capstones get sent back, and how to avoid it
- 9.5 The final exam, your tutoring and what comes next
- Module 9 worksheet
- Module 9 check (quiz)
Final exam · 0 lessons
- Final exam (quiz)