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How We Optimize SEO and Speed for WordPress Websites

• By Jasper Frumau

If your WordPress website looks good but isn’t ranking in search engines or loading fast, you’re probably losing out on potential traffic, leads, and sales. At Imagewize, we specialize in helping businesses optimize their WordPress websites for both search visibility and performance.

Here’s what we do—and how we do it—to make your site faster, more visible, and more effective.

1. In-Depth Technical & On-Page SEO Analysis

We begin every SEO project with a comprehensive audit to uncover technical and content-related issues that could be hurting your rankings.

We use tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, and Ahrefs to check for:

  • Crawl and indexing issues (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, noindex pages)
  • Meta title and meta description quality
  • Heading structure (H1–H3), keyword placement, and content gaps
  • Duplicate or thin content
  • Internal link structure and broken links
  • NAP consistency for local SEO
  • Performance compared to your competitors

This gives us a clear roadmap for improving your site’s visibility in search.

2. Keyword Strategy and Content Optimization

SEO starts with targeting the right keywords. We use tools like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Google Keyword Planner to identify high-value keywords and map them to relevant pages.

Then we:

  • Optimize on-page content with user-focused, keyword-rich text
  • Add or refine calls to action and user flows
  • Recommend new pages (e.g. services, locations, blog posts) to capture long-tail search intent
  • Ensure content structure supports both SEO and readability

We also make use of popular SEO plugins like:

  • Yoast SEO – Great for managing meta titles, descriptions, XML sitemaps, breadcrumbs, and schema markup
  • Rank Math – A powerful alternative that includes advanced schema support and integration with Google Search Console

These plugins help ensure that all on-page SEO elements are properly implemented and maintained.

3. Optimizing Metadata for Click-Through and Relevance

Meta titles and descriptions are key for both SEO and user engagement. We ensure every page on your site has:

  • Unique, keyword-targeted meta titles (within 60 characters)
  • Well-written, engaging meta descriptions (within 155 characters)
  • Clear alignment with user search intent

This improves how your site appears in search results—and helps attract more qualified visitors.

4. Image Optimization with Plugins and Server-Side Tools

Images often slow down WordPress websites more than anything else. That’s why image optimization is a crucial step in performance tuning.

We optimize images by:

  • Compressing and resizing large image files
  • Converting to WebP format when supported
  • Enabling lazy loading to delay offscreen images

Depending on your setup, we use:

  • Imagify – A user-friendly image optimization plugin (often bundled with WP Rocket)
  • ShortPixel – Another solid plugin for automatic image compression and WebP conversion
  • Server-side optimization – If you prefer not to use plugins, we can handle image compression via tools like jpegoptim, pngquant, or cwebp during deployment or staging

We also ensure that all images include meaningful ALT text for accessibility and image search indexing. On image optimization also see our blog post on this.

5. Performance Optimization: WP Rocket or LiteSpeed

A fast website is essential for both rankings and conversions. Depending on your hosting environment, we tailor our approach using the best available tools.

If you’re on LiteSpeed Server:

We use LiteSpeed Cache to:

  • Minify and combine CSS/JS files
  • Enable object and browser caching
  • Use QUIC.cloud CDN for global speed boosts
  • Optimize mobile vs. desktop caching strategies

If you use Apache or Nginx hosting:

We recommend and configure WP Rocket:

  • Page caching and GZIP compression
  • CSS/JS optimization
  • Lazy loading for images and iframes
  • Preloading and database cleanup
  • Easy integration with Imagify for media optimization

WP Rocket is a premium plugin, but the results are often worth the investment for improved load times and Core Web Vitals performance.

6. Elementor Optimization (If Applicable)

Many of our clients use Elementor as their page builder. While flexible, it can be bloated if not managed well. We optimize Elementor by:

  • Disabling unused features (like default fonts and icons)
  • Cleaning up inline styles and unnecessary widgets
  • Streamlining heavy page sections
  • Replacing bloated elements with lightweight alternatives

This helps reduce frontend file size and improves both load speed and maintainability.

7. Speed Monitoring and Reporting

After implementing performance improvements, we provide clear reporting so you can see exactly what changed and why it matters.

We use:

Our reports show before-and-after metrics, screenshots, and key areas of improvement. You’ll have data to track real-world results—whether it’s faster load times, better SEO scores, or improved user engagement.

Why SEO and Speed Optimization Matter

  • Search engines rank faster, well-structured sites higher
  • Users are more likely to stay on and convert from fast, intuitive sites
  • Better Core Web Vitals equals better long-term visibility and user satisfaction

Whether you’re a local service provider, e-commerce shop, or a growing B2B business, performance and SEO are mission-critical—not optional.

Ready to Improve Your WordPress Site?

At Imagewize, we combine smart tools with expert strategy to make your site faster, more visible, and more profitable. Whether you’re using Yoast SEO or Rank Math, LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket, Imagify or server-level tools, we tailor our approach to your stack.

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