Elementor says they’re the fastest page builder for WordPress.
So what’s causing your slow loading website?
There are usually a few simple tweaks that can significantly improve your load times and GTmetrix scores. Elementor says the most common reasons for a slow WordPress site are servers, media, external scripts (eg. Google Fonts), plugins, no CDN, and using a mediocre cache plugin. However, they don’t go into much detail into listing step-by-step instructions.
That’s why I wrote this tutorial.
You’ll learn how to fix your slow Elementor site by following key recommendations from the WordPress optimization guide and Elementor’s recommendations. I will provide screenshots, detailed instructions, and will answer all comments if you still need help. I managed to get 100% GTmetrix scores on my homepage. Even posts with 100+ images and 400+ comments (5MB page size and 170 requests) still load in about <2s. Yeah, I’m a WordPress speed nerd 🙂
1. Upgrade To PHP 7.4
Many hosting companies have already released PHP 7.4.
Upgrading PHP versions is one of the easiest ways to speed up your Elementor site. Kinsta’s PHP benchmarks shows how higher PHP versions can run 2-3x faster. Elementor also recommends higher PHP versions and to increase memory limit to 256MB (see next step).
First, check your current PHP Version under Elementor > System Info.
Next, login to your hosting account, find the PHP version manager (or similar), and select a higher PHP version. It’s also a good idea to take a backup beforehand. Otherwise, that’s it!
Important: make sure your plugins are compatible with higher PHP versions. I was using WP Rich Snippets (which is not maintained anymore) but it was incompatible with PHP 7.2+, so I deleted the plugin and found a replacement. It is not worth keeping non-maintained plugins.
2. Increase Memory Limit To 256MB
Again, check your memory limit in
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This article was written by Tom Dupuis and originally published on Tom Dupuis.