What's the best way to speed up your website on any web host?

Imho implementing a CDN like even the free version of Cloudflare with make a lot of optimisations and caching a lot easier. What still needs to be done is making you core website lose weight ( js / css / images / fonts) but as a quick and slightly dirty win just changing your nameservers to Cloudflare or a similar CDN will do the trick.

Focus on one key aspect: Keep your website light, whether in text or graphics. Let's dive in. To speed up your site: Less Text: Simplify content. Combine info in one paragraph. For instance, introduce your founder, then talk about your company – less content, better impact. Less Graphics: Use compressed media, and limit graphics. Follow these steps for a faster website. Check my site's speed: Devoteddeveloperz.com. It's live but might've expired. See proof there! 🚀

Optimize Images: Compress and use appropriate formats for images. Content Delivery Network (CDN): Utilize a CDN for faster content delivery. Caching: Implement browser and server-side caching. Minify Code: Minimize CSS and JavaScript files. Reduce HTTP Requests: Limit external requests and use CSS sprites. Mobile Optimization: Ensure responsiveness and mobile-friendly design. Server Resources: Choose a web host with ample server resources. Content Prioritization: Prioritize above-the-fold content. Gzip Compression: Enable Gzip for text files. Regular Maintenance: Update and maintain your website consistently.

Or use Cloudflare polish, will do all of this at the CDN edge. If you are using WordPress also look at Lightspeed cach plugin which will optimize all you images in the cloud (mostly for free).

If you prefer not to rely on plugins for lazy loading, you can utilize the 'loading="lazy"' attribute on the image tag, which is widely supported by browsers. However, it's advisable to refrain from implementing lazy loading for images expected to appear in the above-the-fold area, especially when they are considered LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) images

Prioritising the loading of critical media files can significantly enhance your site's first impression. Using fetchpriority=high attribute lets developers mark high-priority media for prompt fetching. The link rel=preload tag can also be used to instruct browsers to preload specific images or videos, ensuring they're ready for display immediately upon need, beneficial for above-the-fold media crucial for user engagement. Strategic management of media file loading, based on their relevance and page position, notably improves both perceived and actual website performance.

When configuring web servers like Apache and Nginx, it's important to activate gzip or Brotli compression to enhance the delivery of static resources. It's worth noting that files compressed with Brotli are generally 14-20% smaller in size compared to gzip compression. However, refrain from applying gzip or Brotli compression to images, as they are typically already compressed, and recompressing them can actually increase their file sizes.

Especially in bigger countries, a CDN will make sense from a geo perspective. Even more, when using a caching strategy that increases your cache hit ratio. If not, and your CDN provider doesn't have an optimal server (PoP) distribution across the globe, a CDN might only introduce additional latency. I've especially seen this within shops that didn't have an international audience, but only serving pages to people in a small country (The Netherlands, Belgium). When putting a CDN between the visitor and the origin server, there will often be a single CDN that is going to be involved in serving pages. But when the caching strategy is set to DYNAMIC, the CDN will need to fetch contents from your origin server, introducing latency instead.

In the HTTP 1.1 era, combining files like CSS or JavaScript was common to reduce HTTP requests and improve page loading times, as this protocol handles requests sequentially. However, HTTP/2 introduced multiplexing, allowing simultaneous file transfers over a single connection, rendering file combination less beneficial. Now, file splitting is advisable, ensuring only necessary files are loaded at any given time, improving page load speeds, and user experience. Additionally, HTTP/2's file splitting facilitates better caching control, with smaller files being cached more efficiently, showcasing HTTP/2’s efficiency in modern web development.

It's typically very easy to enhance the site or solve issues using plugins. But this -on top of other issues- involves server side work. Which will impact server response times and thus TTFB, potentially site-wide. Redirects are a good example. One could install a plugin to easily add redirects to a website. However, this means that when a server is receicing a request for a URL, the server would first need to run the CMS, which will likely do database fetches to find the new URL to redirect to. A better alternative is not use a plugin, but adding redirects in your htaccess file. This way the server can directly act on the redirect. No CMS involved while also leaving open processes for other visitors means improved performance in 2 ways.

Sometimes, deleting a plugin from a website's dashboard isn't enough. A few plugins leave their tables in the database. Not even database optimization plugins can fix it. So, it's better to check the database tables after uninstalling a plugin. You can easily delete them manually.