The 31 Fastest WordPress Themes in 2023 [+ Test Data]

Anna Fitzgerald
Anna Fitzgerald

Published:

Slow-loading websites result in a poor user experience and increase your chances of being replaced by the next option listed in the Google search results. Luckily, we've collected some of the fastest-loading WordPress themes available, so you can speed up your website in no time.

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To optimize your load time, you need to carefully select your WordPress theme. The right theme will be coded to the highest standards, lightweight, and SEO-friendly.

After we dive into this collection, we’ll also cover:

But, let’s start with the fastest-loading WordPress themes.

Fast Loading WordPress Themes Ranked

In addition to design, functionality, price, and template selection, load time is an important factor to consider when choosing a WordPress theme.

To make the selection process easier for you, we've compiled the times of the 15 fastest-loading WordPress themes in the table below. You can check out the scores of all 31 by reading past the chart.

THEME

WEBPAGE TEST

GTMETRIX

PINGDOM

Astra

60ms

1.3s

601ms

SociallyViral

1.330s

917ms

318ms

SocialNow

1.330s

1.6s

747ms

Qi Theme

1.368s

1.5s

1.68s

GeneratePress

1.435s

658ms

407ms

Customify

1.534s

5.7s

472ms

Schema

1.534s

5.7s

472ms

Parallax Pro

1.537s

1.2s

512ms

Blocksy

1.699s

1.5s

1.27s

Elementor

1.771s

1.3s

748ms

Writee

1.876s

1.1s

837ms

MagXP

1.834s

1.1s

513ms

Kava

1.921s

1.3s 617ms

Genesis

1.925s

1.2s

567ms

Divi

2.214s

1.9s

3.86s

Zakra

2.403s

1.2s

716ms

The themes listed above can help you create a fast and customized WordPress website, regardless of the technical experience, budget, or business goals you may have.

Note that load time data is included for each theme. This data was gathered by running the demo site of each theme through the WebPageTest, GTmetrix, and Pingdom tools. The values listed are the fully loaded results for each tool.

1. Astra

WebpageTest Load Time: 60ms

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 601ms

Web Design Agency Demo of fast WordPress theme Astra-1

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Astra is a multipurpose WordPress theme designed for speed and ease of use. Its compatibility with WordPress plugins and integrations gives you a chance to build lots of different types of sites, from a learning space to an online store.

The Astra theme uses vanilla JavaScript, clean code, and no jQuery to ensure fast load times. It’s also compatible with the built-in WordPress Gutenberg editor, page builders, and most leading WordPress plugins to ensure it’s easy to use. Finally, thanks to its 180+ starter templates, Astra enables anyone, at any skill level, to build and launch websites with ease.

This theme’s loading speed rate is between 91% and 100%, which is an amazing result for a theme with all its features. If you want a complex but also fast and accessible website, this is the theme for you.

Pricing: Basic (Free), Astra Pro ($59), Essential Bundle ($169), Growth Bundle ($249) 

2. SociallyViral

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.330 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 917ms

Pingdom Load Time: 318ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Socially Viral

This theme is a great option for online magazines and informative blogs, as it offers all the customizations needed to build an online presence. With its unique interface, the theme allows you to showcase your content and create an engaging experience to keep visitors on your site.

SociallyViral is not only a great content display option, but is also fast enough to avoid drop-off and provides easy navigation and improved usability. If you want to create a website with a huge variety of multimedia content and without compromising user experience quality, this is the theme for you.

Pricing: One-year subscription ($49)

3. SocialNow

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.330 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.6s

Pingdom Load Time: 318ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Social Now

SocialNow is the go-to theme for businesses that focus their marketing efforts on a strong social media presence. The theme has Megamenu compatibility and a clean layout that you can easily adapt to your brand’s needs. With a high loading score and 51 HTTP requests, SocialNow can put your content easily in front of your audience’s eyes that will capture their attention. The content management features are created to help users easily find and share your best content, leading to an engaging and social media friendly interface that can help your business grow across different platforms.

This SEO-optimized and fully responsive website theme is a good option if you want to build a strong social media strategy. 

Pricing: One-year subscription ($49)

4. Qi Theme 

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.368 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.5 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.68 seconds

fastest wordpress themes in 2022: qi theme

Qi Theme is an excellent multipurpose theme that packs 150 free and premium demos covering all possible niches.

It is characterized by modern design and an emphasis on aesthetics, but its technical side is impressive, too. The theme developers have made sure to make it lightweight and fast, and numerous tests (as well as user feedback) have reported it to be extremely stable and reliable, too.

The Qi Theme can be used for an online shop, a portfolio, a company website or a blog. With its rich selection of demos, it has a layout for just about anyone. On top of that, being powered by the amazing Qi Addons for Elementor plugin, the theme comes with more than 100 flexible widgets that add exclusive features and functionalities, many of which you won’t find anywhere else. Despite being this rich, Qi Theme still manages to be one of the fastest themes around. 

PricingBasic (Free), Qi Addons ($69/year), Qi Theme & Addons ($129/year)

5. GeneratePress

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.435 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 658ms

Pingdom Load Time: 407ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Generate Press

GeneratePress is one of the most tech compatible options in the theme market. With its modern coding work, it achieves a 100% speed score. You will also find a lot of options regarding customizations, plugins and functionalities.

PricingBasic (Free), Pro ($59/Year or $249 OTP)

6. Customify

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.534 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 5.7 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 472ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Customify

This theme is known for its user-friendly approach and options to personalize its header and footer with the Wordpress Customizer. Use Customify to take advantage of all the UX and brand design facts that you know. You can create an accessible website in just a few clicks.

PricingBasic (Free), Personal Bundle ($59/year), Business Bundle ($89/Year), Agency Bundle ($129/Year) 

7. Schema

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.534 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 5.7 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 472ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Schema

Schema is created with a fast loading rate as the main goal. With its Javascript code, the few elements displayed on the screen and a short amount of HTTP requests, this is one of the most speed-optimized themes that you can find. It is based on shortcodes and offers a full panel for easy customization. SEO is another of its strong points, as it offers snippets that make search tools better understand what your content is about.

Pricing: Unlimited Sites ($49/year)

8. Parallax Pro

WebpageTest Fully Loaded Time: 1.537 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 3.9 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 512ms

fastest-loading-wordpress-themes_3

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Parallax Pro is a beautiful package of templates specifically built for the Genesis framework.

As the name suggests, Parallax Pro comes with a stunning parallax effect to add depth to your website. The layout also clearly divides the page into sections so you can organize large volumes of content. This vertical design encourages readers to scroll to the bottom of the page and click the call-to-action button.

Parallax Pro is blazing fast because it uses GZIP compression to compress images and other components and defers loading Javascript. This makes it lightweight and requires few HTTP requests.

PricingBasic (Free), Genesis Pro ($360/Year and includes support for Genesis and all its WordPress themes)

9. Blocksy

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.699 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.5 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.27 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Blocksy

Blocky is another great option that minimalist creators will love. This free theme offers a clean design for you to create a fast-loading website. It is fully customizable and it has a 100% GTMetrix page speed load score.

Everything is based on its unique coding structure: this theme uses a selective coding feature, known as code splitting. This means that Javascript will one be loaded if the user needs it to be, which directly increases your website performance.

PricingBasic (Free), Personal ($49/year), Professional ($69), Agency ($99) 

10. Elementor

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.771 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 623ms

Pingdom Load Time: 1.35 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Elementor

This theme is the best option for websites that need a simple design with fewer features. The Elementor theme has complete compatibility with all upcoming updates of this page builder. This light theme is compatible with all the WordPress plugins, gives you the chance to easily build a multilingual site, and allows you to create a fast and responsive website with a clean design.

Being a free theme and loading in just 0.6 seconds, with a loading rate of almost 100%, this is one of the fastest free themes that you will find.

PricingBasic ($14.99/month), Business ($24.99/month), Grow ($32.99/month), Scale ($59.99/month) 

11. Writee

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.876 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.1 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 837ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Writee

Available in a free and premium version, Writee is one of the fastest loading themes for blogging. Writee loads so quickly because it's lightweight, defers loading Javascript, and has a cacheable favicon, among other reasons.

There's built-in pagination options, social media sharing icons, and a related posts widget to make your site easier to navigate. You can also easily upload and customize a favicon and logo, enable or disable breadcrumbs, and choose from a range of sidebar options. There's even more features available with Writee Pro.

PricingBasic (Free), Writee Pro ($49.99 OTP)

12. MagXP

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.834 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.1 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 513ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: MagXP

This beginner-friendly theme has all the features that a non-tech person needs to build a stunning website, such as drag-and-drop design, 10 built-in homepage designs that you can use right away, and a lot of room to add your brand touch without playing around with the code. It offers unlimited color options and premade layouts that you can choose from with just one click.

The magPX theme loads your content in less than two second and offers different options for speed optimization so you can improve your website’s performance. 

Pricing: $39/year or $199 OTP

13. Kava

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.921 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 617ms

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This free theme is compatible with Elementor and it is a great option for simple and clean websites that need to be built within a budget. You will have six layouts to choose from with 10 variations to find the best option for you.

If you want to create a SEO-friendly site with built-in customization that can show your content in just 1.3 seconds, then Kava Theme is the option for you.

PricingRegular License ($24 for 6 months support)

14. Genesis Framework Package

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.925 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.2 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 567ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Genesis

Genesis is one of the most widely-used WordPress theme frameworks by business owners and bloggers. If you are looking to build a fast and SEO-optimized child theme on a secured framework, then try Genesis Framework Package. You can also use any of the dozens of existing free Genesis child themes.

PricingBasic (Free), Genesis Pro ($360/Year and includes support for Genesis and all its WordPress themes)

wordpress launch checklist cta

15. Divi Theme

WebpageTest Load Time: 2.214 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.9 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 3.86 seconds

Internet service provider homepage demo available with fast WordPress theme Divi

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Divi is one of the most popular and widely used WordPress themes. Known for its versatile and feature-rich design, the Divi theme comes with its own page builder. This front-end builder is extremely powerful and offers a number of modules that can be used to customize your site without coding. 

Despite having a robust amount of features and design options, Divi maintains its simplicity and quick loading time. 

PricingYearly ($89/year), Lifetime ($249 OTP)

16. Zakra

WebpageTest Load Time: 2.403 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.8 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 670ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Zakra

The Zakra theme is a multi-purpose option that can be used for a large range of projects, from blogs to e-commerce stores. Zakra has many different style options, it’s SEO-optimized, and it’s fully compatible with WooCommerce. Its lightweight and clean design makes it easy to create an enjoyable user experience.

This easy-to-customize option is also one of the fastest loading themes that you will find, with a 98% loading score. 

PricingBasic (Free), Personal ($69/year), Personal Plus ($89/year), Developer ($299/year)

17. OceanWP

WebpageTest Load Time: 2.758 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 233ms

Pingdom Load Time: 474ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: OceanWP

This theme is the go-to option for small business owners. Its free version offers easy-to-follow demonstrations of how to implement features to develop your store, and even social media integrations that will make your online presence stand out. It is SEO friendly, offers translation tools and you can use it with many different page builders like Elementor and Divi.

Even with its many features, this theme is pretty light, with a loading score of 98%. If you are looking for an affordable way to make the most out of your website, then you should consider OceanWP.

PricingBasic (Free), Personal ($54/year), Business ($89/year), Agency ($159/year)

18. Simple

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.334 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.1 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 630ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Simple

Simple Theme is a great minimalist design option for businesses who want to create a clean, online presence. It includes a fully loaded option panel to easily change fonts, choose colors, and add or remove sidebars.

This clean theme is mobile-friendly and can showcase your content in less than a second, and it has a free version available for you to start building your website right away. 

PricingBasic (Free), Single ($59/year), Master Club ($89/year), Lifetime Club ($249/year)

19. Newspaper

WebpageTest Load Time: 2.610 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 657 ms

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This clean-coded theme uses HTML5 and CSS3 to run all its features. It is a great option to choose if you want to prioritize SEO as it gives you all the features needed to easily create articles and blog posts and is compatible with the yoast SEO plugin. Newspaper Theme can also analyze your website content and optimize the code on the page with a 98% page speed score, you can share all of your content without increasing the drop-off rate.

You will find 90 templates ready to fill with your own content and almost 1000 graphic elements included in an advanced design panel. You can also customize your site using the drag-and-drop options, no coding skills necessary. 

PricingRegular License ($59 for 6 months support)

20. Brando

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.400 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.9 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 578ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Brando

Brando theme is a great multipurpose option that any company can use to build a functional website. Powered by HTML5 and CSS3, it has a 100% loading score and few HTTP requests. It is compatible with all the different devices and its SEO optimization is supported by W3C validated code and optimized code. It boasts more than 500+ Google fonts, styled slides to showcase your work, and nice clean counters to make the most of your launches. This theme has many details that can turn your website into an amazing experience for your users.

Brando gives you the option to use the WPBakery Page Builder, which will help you build different themes to make your frontend look better and easily update your content. Together with its one-click demo installment makes it easier to build a functional website with all the features that you need.

PricingRegular License ($59 for 6 months support)

21. Yosemite

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.500 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 7.5 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.23 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Yosemite Lite

This clean theme is inspired by Apple’s Yosemite OS X design. It offers an elegant design that allows you to build an interface that your users will love to explore, short coding editing options to build without plugins, and it is compatible with MegaMenu and WP Review Pro. With well-ranked readability and Adsense optimization, your engagement rate will skyrocket. It has a fluid compatibility that will help your website adapt to each device and a Schema integration to showcase your content in an organized way that allows it to rank higher in search results.

Yosemite is a great option for bloggers who want to update their website features without struggling.

PricingYearly ($39/year), Lifetime ($199 OTP)

22. HireBee

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.555 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.8 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.08 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: HireBee

The HireBee theme is an option for businesses that want to create a freelance platform or marketplace, like Upwork and Fiverr. It has different features that allow you to personalize the user experience of the platform by including special features for freelancers, pricing options, and notifications. You can provide user-based access to their own dashboard.

This theme’s clean code allows any developer to make customizations, and both the setup and updates are easy to manage. This clean theme is lightweight, makes few HTTP requests and is optimized for SEO. 

PricingStandard ($69 for lifetime access), Club ($199 for lifetime access and access to more themes)

23. Avada

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.865 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.36 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Avada

Avada can help you build a fast-loading website with no coding skills required. This theme has a design panel with all the customization options that you can think of, from imagery to colors, fonts, and layout. Websites that are built with Avada themes are mobile-friendly platforms that display content in a dynamic format.

If you aim to create a fast-loading website, Avada was made for you. 

PricingRegular License ($69 for 6 months of support)

24. MoneyFlow

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.865 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.36 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: MoneyFlow

This theme is an essential item for any blogger or service provider who aims to create a passive stream of income based on their skills. With its unique ads settings, it gives you the options that you need to make the most out of your advertising strategy. It is a responsive option with tons of aesthetic details, like unlimited icons, colors, and backgrounds. It is easy for users to navigate across your content as it offers both an Ajax search bar and content filters.

This clean-coded theme can help you create a SEO-friendly website with a great loading score. 

PricingRegular License ($39 OTP)

25. Best

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.865 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.3 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.36 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Best

This is a magazine theme that can help you create a customized editorial-focused website with an engaging design. With the main goal of getting your content in front of lots of people, this theme has the SEO optimization needed to rank well on Google results. If you are thinking about monetizing this website and the content that you share there, Best will have you covered by offering a full optimization for advertisers.

With its different styling options, you can build a website that better suits your brand's aesthetic by also maintaining a fast-loading performance. 

PricingRegular License ($49 with 1 year of support)

26. Neve

WebpageTest Load Time: 3.964 seconds 

GTmetrix Load Time: 3.2 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.29 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Neve

This platform offers a large variety of WordPress themes, but the Neve one has a special place in this list because it is the fastest that they have created. With a 90-100% success rate in loading time, this theme will give you the basis to build a website that can catch your audience's attention in just 1.1 seconds.

It’s a great option for online stores as it shows efficient results when it comes to integration with WooCommerce. Not a tech person? This theme has resources that show you how to build a successful website based on your industry’s needs. Neve is a great easy to use option that business owners who want an intuitive, user-friendly solution for their online presence should consider. 

PricingBasic (Free), Personal ($99/year), Business ($199/year), Agency ($349/year)

27. TheGem

WebpageTest Load Time: 4.010 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.7 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.55 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: The Gem

This theme was created with the latest UX and UI trends in mind. With its creative and customizable design, the theme gives you the chance to create either a simple website or a platform full of different elements. Whether you decide to go for the simple or the enhanced option, both will have an adapted optimized user experience to guarantee that your users can easily navigate your website. Fully responsive, SEO-friendly and fast-loading, TheGem theme is a great option for creators, businesses, agencies, and marketing professionals.

PricingRegular License ($59 for 6 months of support)

28. Coupon

WebpageTest Load Time: 4.307 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.0 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 479ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Coupon

The Coupon Wordpress theme offers an easy-to-use option for business owners to create their own websites. Online store owners and service providers can achieve their dream website without coding skills, just by using all the features that this theme includes. It has an AdSense optimization tool, fully responsive design and, of course, it is compatible with WooCommerce. All its features make it easy to create your online store, attract clients and monetize your website. The best part? It will show your products and content in 1.0 second.

PricingRegular License ($49 OTP)

29. Olsen

WebpageTest Load Time: 5.787 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 7.1 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.03 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: Olsen

The Olsen theme is a good option for any lifestyle or fashion brand trying to build its online presence. With its clean layout designs, it offers a nice combination between white space and content display that will help creators give their audiences a nice user experience. This theme is SEO-optimized and it offers different layout options that you can choose from based on your brand needs. It has a live editing option, custom widgets and it can be used with different page builders like Elementor and Divi.

PricingBasic (Free), Olsen Pro ($49/year), Standard Club ($69/year), Developer Club ($79/year), Lifetime Club ($249/year)

30. MH Magazine

WebpageTest Load Time: 6.876 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 2.6 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 1.33 seconds

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: MH Magazine

MH Magazine is ideal for different editorial projects from fashion and news to travel, education or culture. Its responsive layout, fast-loading speed and compatibility with different internet browsers make this theme a user-friendly option to display informative content. It has easy to use theme options that allow people with no coding skills to create a website based on their vision.

PricingSingle Theme ($49/year)

31. SEO WP

WebpageTest Load Time: 1.876 seconds

GTmetrix Load Time: 1.1 seconds

Pingdom Load Time: 837ms

Fastest Loading WordPress Theme: SEO WP

This fast loading theme is an option specially created for digital marketing agencies who want to showcase their services. It includes illustrations, images and different graphic elements that can help agencies showcase their services in the most dynamic way. Marketing tools like social sharing, Google ranking tool and a Mailchimp integration are some of the advantages that this theme offers. Users have the option to choose from many pre-built website templates created for conversion optimization. In addition, all the included plugins are tailored to marketing service providers, making it easier to create a selling platform for their businesses.

The SEO WP Theme offers a lot of customization options and integrations, while also providing a satisfactory user experience. 

PricingRegular License ($69 for 6 months support)

What makes a WordPress theme fast?

There are several ways that a WordPress theme can be optimized for speed. Let's take a look at a few of these factors below.

1. Responsive Design

Most themes have a responsive design, which is essential for offering a fast mobile experience. Since responsive design dynamically loads your website based on the screen size of the visitor, you don't need a separate version of your mobile site. That means Google's crawler only has to go through your site once. If you have a separate version of your mobile site, all the assets on your website will have to be duplicated to the mobile version — which can add up in terms of bandwidth and maintenance.

Since it only requires one set of code, responsive design is a recommended design pattern by Google.

2. Lightweight

Themes that are packed with high-quality images and effects can be heavy. High-quality images often means huge file sizes and animations and effects can require a lot of code, both of which slow your page performance.

Simple themes with only the most necessary features will be lighter in weight and help ensure your site loads quickly. You can always add more design elements and effects later using plugins or custom CSS.

3. Asynchronous or Deferred Loading of CSS and Javascript

While CSS and Javascript files can slow down a website, every theme needs some of this code. CSS and JS is what makes a web page pretty and interactive.

There are two ways these scripts can load: synchronously or asynchronously. Synchronously means that the files load one at a time, in the order in which they appear on the web page. So, if the browser encounters a script, it will stop loading other elements on the page until that script has been fully loaded.

Asynchronous loading, on the other hand, enables multiple files to load at the same time, which can speed up the web page's performance.

Some themes are designed to load asynchronously, or defer loading of these scripts until necessary. These themes will be faster than those that use synchronous loading by default.

4.GZIP Compression

Compression is the process of reducing file sizes in order to make it faster for servers to transfer files to browsers. The less data to send, the faster the page loads in your browser will be.

GZIP is the most popular compression method today because it can reduce the amount of data up to 70%, and in less time, using fewer resources than other methods.

Themes that compress components with GZIP will be generally faster than themes that don't.

You can learn more about this compression method in How to Enable GZIP Compression for Faster Web Pages.

5. Reduced HTTP Requests

Every HTTP request (images, stylesheets, scripts, and fonts), adds to your site’s overall load time. As your site grows, these HTTP requests start to add up and eventually create a noticeable delay between what the user clicks on and when it loads.

The number of files being requested and the size of the files being transferred can affect how long a page may take to load.

Themes with fewer and lighter files will make less HTTP requests and therefore load faster. The best way to figure out how many HTTP requests a theme makes is to run it through a speed testing tool. We'll discuss how to use these below.

How to Check My WordPress Theme's Loading Speed

There are several online tools you can use to check your WordPress theme’s loading speed. Some of the most popular are WebPageTest, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. You should test using a combination of tools since they test for different things and have different servers, which can affect the results.

These tools will analyze the content of a web page and generate performance results and suggestions to make that page faster. The performance results shared will vary by tool, but most will include load time, page size, and number of server requests required to load the content on the page.

If you already have a WordPress website with an active theme installed, then you can simply enter the URL of your site into a speed testing tool. If you don’t have a site and are still looking at themes, then you can test the speed of the demo version of the theme.

Let’s walk through the process of checking your WordPress theme's loading speed using WebPageTest. The steps will be nearly identical if you're using GTmetrix or Pingdom instead.

Step 1: Enter the URL of the website you want to test.

Enter website URL into WebPageTest tool to check WordPress themes loading speed

Step 2: Select the nearest test location that supports the device and/or browser you’re testing.

Step 3: Select the browser you’re testing.

Step 4: Click the Start Test button.

Step 5: Wait for the performance test to process.

Wait for WebPageTest test to process to check your WordPress themes loading speed

Step 6: View results.

Pay particular attention to the “Fully loaded” metrics. These will tell you how many seconds it took to fully load the page and how many individual requests were made to load the page.

Results of WordPress theme demo in WebPageTest tool

You can take a look at WebPageTest's documentation for more information about their metrics and testing.

How fast should a website load?

According to a study by Portent, the ideal load time for conversions is between 0 and 4 seconds.

But the general rule of thumb is that a website should load as fast as possible. The exact time will vary depending on the type of website, its business niche, and its key performance metrics.

There are many factors that affect a website's load time. These include:

  1. How many images, videos, and other media files are on the page
  2. The size of those images, videos, and other media files
  3. Your site's coding and server-side scripts
  4. Whether you use a CDN service
  5. What plugins are installed on your site
  6. What theme is installed on your site

To optimize your load time, you need to carefully select your WordPress theme. The right theme will be coded to the highest standards, lightweight, and SEO-friendly.

Build a fast and user-friendly website.

A fast-loading WordPress theme can help you build a fast website that delights your visitors and improves your chances of ranking. By starting with a clean codebase and only using the elements you need, you'll be setting yourself up for success.

Giving your users an easy-to-navigate option to interact with your products, information, and customer service is a great way to improve your customer success rate while increasing your chances of getting new leads. Now that you have all the data to choose the theme that can suit your business’s needs, it’s time to start working on your fast-loading website.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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