For a long time now, people have struggled with speeds on content management systems, and this includes the most popular of the lot, WordPress. Content management systems have become really complex, in order to cater to user demands. This is understandable but as site speed continues to become more and more important (for the user and Google), so must we be careful about load speeds.
All the back in 2010, Google was already speaking about site speed being important, and this has only become more and more important. A slow website will simply lose out to websites that render faster and ignoring this is a huge problem for anyone who wants their website to compete in the search results (and Google Ads for that matter).
Before we jump into the Performance Labs plugin, we'd like to mention another plugin that we're huge fans of, Nitropack (https://nitropack.io/). Nitropack optimises a website from a speed point of view leveraging a number of different technologies. Nitropack has delivered us some incredible results and we continue to recommend it to all the companies that we work with. One of the best things about Nitropack is that it's really easy to set up. There's a free version that you can use in order to test the plugin. Matthew Woodward, a well-respected SEO, was kind enough to write a full review of Nitropack if you're interested in reading more.
Disclaimer: Matthew included affiliate links to the Nitropack website.
Right, let's look at the topic of today: The Performance Lab plugin.
The plugin is made up of a group of modules that aim to improve the performance of a WordPress website. It is a collection of performance-related "feature projects" for the WordPress Core. This is more easily explained with a screenshot:
The features covered by the plugin are:
- WebP Uploads
- WebP Support
- Persistent Object Cache Health Check
- Audit Enqueued Assets
The purpose of the plugin release is to provide people with a testing environment around various performance matters. The end goal is to take this information and bake it directly into WordPress to improve WordPress at its core.
This is a really important move from WordPress and we're welcoming it with open arms. A faster website is great from a user experience point of view, and from an SEO point of view, it's a huge benefit, especially for mobile users!
You may download the plugin here.