At our small web agency in Odense, Denmark, most clients are local businesses: consultants, webshops, therapists, craftsmen. They don't care about Core Web Vitals as a metric. They care that the site loads on a phone and that people call them. Here is the checklist we run on every new WordPress build.
1. Start with a lean theme
We build with a lightweight theme and Elementor, but keep the global widget set small. Every unused add-on pack we remove is JavaScript the browser never has to parse.
2. Fix images before anything else
On small-business sites, oversized hero images are the number one cause of slow pages. We convert to WebP, cap hero images at around 200 KB, and lazy-load everything below the fold.
3. Cache at the server, not just with a plugin
We host on Danish servers with server-side page caching, then add a caching plugin only for what the server can't handle. Two layers fighting each other is a common reason for weird bugs.
4. Audit plugins every quarter
The typical site we inherit has 30+ plugins. Most can be removed or replaced with a few lines of code. Fewer plugins means faster pages and fewer security updates.
5. Measure on a real phone
Lighthouse scores are useful, but we always test on a mid-range Android over 4G. That is what the customer's customers use.
The result
With these steps most of our builds load in under two seconds on mobile, and clients can still edit everything themselves. If you're curious how this looks in practice, here is how we approach a new website for small businesses (the page is in Danish).
What's on your performance checklist? I'd love to hear what other agencies do.
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