WordPress Speed & Performance
6 Topics • 20 Lessons
Learn to diagnose and improve WordPress performance with free GT Performance. Follow 20 teacher-led lessons, original diagrams and 6 practical workbooks covering measurement, caching, images, frontend work, server capacity and mobile testing.
Improve a real WordPress site by identifying the cause of a delay, making a targeted change and checking that the important tasks still work.
GT Performance is my entirely free WordPress performance plugin and the default tool for this course. You don't need a paid optimization plugin. Hosting and optional infrastructure are separate costs.
What You Will Practice
- Separate field and lab data and interpret Core Web Vitals.
- Choose a clear owner for page caching, frontend optimization and edge rules.
- Improve image, CSS, JavaScript and font delivery without breaking features.
- Inspect database and server work before deleting data or upgrading capacity.
- Test private routes and mobile tasks and retain a useful performance baseline.
Performance Under Real Traffic
Use the advanced module to investigate problems that appear with changing visitor state, repeated navigation and background work.
- Cache Keys and Personalized Content
- Cache Purges and Traffic Stampedes
- AJAX and REST Performance
- Performance After Consent
- Back-Button Performance
- The Server Cost of Optimization
Workbooks
Print the sheets or write notes beside them. Each module includes guided tasks, measurement tables, reasoning questions, answer guidance and a review sheet.
Before You Begin
You should be comfortable using the WordPress dashboard. Have a working backup and use staging for changes that affect dependencies, database records or server configuration. You can follow the diagnostic and planning tasks even when your host manages the server.