Updated as of February 2024
At-hands tips.
If you ever asked yourself how to improve speed on a Divi website, I have some at-hand tips. Some of them were already known and some of them I discovered myself.
As usual, I don’t make long introductions so here we go.
My approach:
1. Use hierarchy on HTML.
The old-fashioned HTML is well read by Google scrappers and metrics. Using an H2 instead of an H1 where you shouldn’t will not only make your website hard to read but also will decrease visibility when it comes to SEO.
2. Connect your website to a CDN
This is a trick I learned in time. I use Cloudflare, their free version and it works like a charm at the moment. It is very possible in the future to subscribe to one of their plans but using their free options is okay at the moment.
The settings in the CDN depend on your goal. For instance, Cloudflare has the option to have “always online” website settings, meaning that even if your website is down, the end-user will have the possibility to access it as they have a strong cache.
3. Use a Child Theme
I use a Child Theme that inherits the main theme. There is no necessity to build a Child Theme from scratch. I’ve discovered that half of the time you can gain the same results when it comes to speed by using Free Divi Theme Builder.
4. Optimize your images.
When it comes to this one I use two options. depending on the time to work is necessary.
a. Photoshop. Using Photoshop is a gem sometimes. By sharing to 70-80% quality in jpg it will shrink the size of the photos and increase the loading speed.
b. Plugin. I use a plugin I built myself that you can check out here as it is free to use. At the moment I am writing this, it is not yet in the WordPress directory. The plugin focuses solely on converting images to the WebP format. We know that too many plugins or overly complex ones can slow down your site, create security vulnerabilities, or cause compatibility issues. That’s why I designed Convert JPG, PNG to WebP to be as lightweight as possible.
The plugin ensures that all variables and options are properly escaped when echoed, preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities making it secure, and using best practices.
With the above said, you reached the end of this article. Hope it helps you in your journey to discovering Divi.
if you are interested in reading more about the WordPress implementation of jQuery, read this article
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