WordPress Power Series: Tips for Building Better Sites Volume 2 – Performance & Speed Optimizations

In the online world, speed is everything. A slow website doesn’t just frustrate visitors, it actively drives them away. Even a one-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions. For community-driven sites powered by PeepSo, performance is even more critical. Members expect fast-loading feeds, snappy interactions, and a smooth experience across devices.

We compiled few tips to make your WordPress site faster and more efficient, with notes on where PeepSo fits into the picture.

If you missed the first volume of this series where we discussed Setup & Configuration, you can see it here.

Run PHP 8+

Your hosting environment matters just as much as your WordPress settings. Running the latest version of PHP gives you noticeable performance boosts, sometimes as much as 20–30% faster page loads compared to older versions.

Choose a High-Performance Host

Your hosting provider is the foundation of your site’s speed. While shared hosting might appear cost-effective at first, it can quickly become a bottleneck as your traffic grows. For online communities in particular, performance and stability depend heavily on the quality and optimization of the hosting environment.

Pick one that is reliable, scalable, and capable of handling the specific needs of your site without sacrificing speed or uptime.

Limit Post Revisions

By default, WordPress stores every revision of your posts, which bloats the database. Limit it to a reasonable number, like 5. Add this to wp-config.php:

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 5 );

Pick a Lightweight Theme

The Gecko Theme is an excellent choice. It’s the epitome of lightweight design, loading only the necessary resources without unnecessary bloat. That said, Gecko is not required for PeepSo. You can install any theme you like, and PeepSo will adapt to it, just as any well-coded WordPress plugin should.

If you decide to use a different theme, make sure it’s fast, responsive, and cleanly coded. Avoid heavy multipurpose themes, as they often include bloated code that can slow down your site’s performance.

Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN distributes your site’s static files (such as images, CSS, and JavaScript) across a global network of servers. Instead of every visitor connecting to your main server, they are routed to the server geographically closest to them. This reduces latency, speeds up page delivery, and helps ensure a smoother browsing experience. In addition to faster load times, a CDN can also reduce the strain on your origin server and improve reliability during traffic spikes.

Use a Caching

We intentionally didn’t title this “Use a caching plugin”. Caching plugins mostly expose settings you can also configure at the server level, they just package them in a friendly WordPress interface, which is why they’re popular. Everything a plugin can set can typically be set on the server, but that requires an experienced admin, so a plugin is often the more practical choice for less-experienced developers.

Be careful with caching, whether you implement it via a plugin or directly on the server. PeepSo is a dynamic plugin and doesn’t always play well with aggressive/static caching. Test thoroughly before rolling it out, and monitor after enabling. This is not a “set it and forget it” type of configuration.

Avoid “Optimizer” Plugins

These are the kinds of plugins that promise speed boosts and “magic” performance improvements. The truth is, most of these “optimizer” tools just squash your CSS and JavaScript into one compressed file. Sounds good in theory, but in practice it often makes random features break across all plugins, not just PeepSo. Since they’re usually tested only with WordPress’ built-in features, it’s almost guaranteed they’ll clash with third-party plugins and cause more headaches than they solve.

A fast WordPress site isn’t just about showing off, it directly affects user experience, search rankings, and even conversion rates. For PeepSo communities, speed plays a huge role in how engaged your members stay. After all, nobody wants to wait for a newsfeed to load.

By putting these optimizations in place, you’ll keep your site lean, efficient, and ready to grow as your community does.

In Volume 3 of the WordPress Power Series, we’ll dive into Security Best Practices, because a fast site doesn’t mean much if it isn’t secure.

Brought to you by Siniša Krišan

I am experienced in various social networks and platforms. Among other things, I’m the guy you turn to for figuring out the feature’s details and resolving issues. I hail from Novi Sad, Serbia. My journey with Open Source had taken me across the globe to Bali, Indonesia, where I had spent several years working & evolving with the base PeepSo Team. I was involved with planning and development of very early versions of PeepSo and helped pushing the product forward. Although I tend to engage full workaholic mode, I am essentially a laid back person. I’m also a hardcore gamer and I enjoy playing video games with my girlfriend whenever I catch precious little spare time. I enjoy traveling and learning about new cultures and surroundings.