How to Improve Website Speed: The 2024 Complete Checklist

Admin June 12, 2026 4 min read 10 views

Why Page Speed Is Non-Negotiable in 2024

Google confirmed page speed as a ranking factor in 2010 for desktop, and in 2018 for mobile. In 2021, Google elevated this further with Core Web Vitals — a set of specific, measurable performance metrics that directly impact search rankings:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — How long until the largest visible element loads. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — How responsive the page is to user interactions. Target: under 200 milliseconds.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — How much the page layout shifts while loading. Target: under 0.1.

Beyond SEO, every 100ms improvement in page load time improves e-commerce conversion rates by approximately 1% (Deloitte, 2019). For a site generating ₹1,00,000/month, a 500ms improvement could mean ₹5,000 in additional revenue — every month, indefinitely.

CATEGORY 1: Image Optimisation (Biggest Impact)

☐ Serve images in WebP or AVIF format — 25–50% smaller than JPEG/PNG at equivalent quality. Use Flixfer's WebP Converter.
☐ Resize images to display dimensions — Never serve a 4000px image in a 800px column. Use Flixfer's Image Resizer.
☐ Compress images — Use Flixfer's Image Compressor to reduce JPEG/PNG sizes by 40–70%.
☐ Add loading="lazy" to all below-fold images.
☐ Add explicit width and height attributes to prevent layout shift (CLS).
☐ Use srcset and sizes for responsive images across different viewport sizes.
☐ Use <picture> element for progressive format delivery (AVIF → WebP → JPEG).

CATEGORY 2: CSS and JavaScript

☐ Minify CSS files — Use Flixfer's CSS Minifier to remove whitespace and comments from production CSS.
☐ Minify JavaScript files — Use Flixfer's JS Minifier for production JS bundles.
☐ Defer non-critical JavaScript — Add defer or async attributes to script tags that aren't needed for initial rendering.
☐ Remove unused CSS — Tools like PurgeCSS can eliminate CSS rules that aren't used by any page.
☐ Inline critical CSS — Extract the CSS needed for above-the-fold content and inline it in the HTML <head> to eliminate render-blocking requests.

CATEGORY 3: Fonts

☐ Use system fonts where possible — System fonts (Inter, Segoe UI, -apple-system) require zero network requests.
☐ Preload critical fonts — Add <link rel="preload" as="font"> for fonts used in above-the-fold content.
☐ Use font-display: swap — Prevents invisible text during font load. Show fallback font immediately, swap when web font is ready.
☐ Subset fonts — Load only the character ranges you actually use (e.g., Latin subset for English-only sites).
☐ Limit font weights — Each font weight is a separate file. Use 2–3 weights maximum.

CATEGORY 4: Server and Caching

☐ Enable gzip or Brotli compression — Text-based assets (HTML, CSS, JS, JSON) compress by 60–80%. This is typically configured in your web server or hosting panel.
☐ Set proper Cache-Control headers — Static assets (images, fonts, CSS, JS) should be cached with long max-age values (e.g., 1 year for versioned assets).
☐ Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) — Cloudflare's free tier provides CDN, caching, and DDoS protection. Essential for sites with international visitors.
☐ Upgrade to HTTP/2 — Most modern hosting supports HTTP/2, which allows multiplexed requests and significantly improves performance for sites with many assets.
☐ Enable database query caching — For PHP/Laravel sites, cache expensive database queries using Redis or Memcached.

CATEGORY 5: HTML and Core Web Vitals

☐ Reduce server response time (TTFB) — Target under 200ms Time to First Byte. Upgrade hosting, implement caching, or use a CDN.
☐ Preconnect to external domains — Use <link rel="preconnect"> for Google Fonts, CDN providers, and analytics domains.
☐ Minimise render-blocking resources — All render-blocking CSS and JS should be deferred or removed from the critical path.
☐ Reserve space for dynamic content — Ads, embeds, and asynchronously loaded elements must have reserved dimensions to avoid CLS.

How to Measure Your Score

Use these free tools to measure your current speed and track improvements:

Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) — Official Core Web Vitals measurement with specific recommendations.
GTmetrix (gtmetrix.com) — Detailed waterfall chart showing exactly which assets take longest to load.
WebPageTest (webpagetest.org) — Advanced testing including filmstrip view, video comparison, and multi-location testing.

Tags:

Web Performance SEO Speed Optimization Core Web Vitals

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