A practical website speed checklist for 2026

Speed is a ranking factor and a conversion factor. You don't need a rebuild to fix most of it — you need to do these in order.

1. Serve images in modern formats (AVIF/WebP) and size them to their display box.
2. Preload the LCP image or hero font, and set font-display: swap.
3. Defer non-critical JavaScript. Tag managers and chat widgets are the usual culprits.
4. Cache aggressively at the edge with a CDN.
5. Cut layout shift — reserve space for images, ads and embeds.
6. Audit third-party scripts. Each one is someone else's performance budget spent on your site.

Run PageSpeed Insights before and after each change so you can see what actually moved.