Elementor & Site Speed: Does Elementor Slow Down Your Site?

Website speed is a critical factor for both user experience and search engine optimization.

As a website owner or designer, you want to make sure that every aspect of your site is optimized for speed.

The question “does Elementor slow down your site?” is one that many people are asking, given the growing popularity of Elementor as a page builder plugin for WordPress.

In this blog post, we’ll dive into the truth about Elementor and site speed and explore the impact that Elementor has on website performance.

Having created over 100 websites using this amazing page builder and on top of that created over 400 videos on my youtube channel sharing tips and tutorials on Elementor’s use cases.

I want to share my thoughts and maybe you could pick a thing or two when it comes to site speed and building sites using the page builder.

By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of whether Elementor is affecting the speed of your website and what you can do to improve performance.

What is Elementor?

Without a doubt, Elementor is currently the most popular WordPress page builder at least as of publishing this post. With over 8 million active users, a huge community and a great number of resources across platforms.

Elementor has a built-in responsive mode and a wealth of features and widgets which enable users to create websites quickly or edit already-existing ones using the user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.

Elementor is installed as a plugin, and it’s free. However, in addition to its free version, it also provides a premium website builder called Elementor Pro, which comes with extra features and add-ons.

Elementor website builder plugin

Elementor offers a wide range of widgets and add-ons, and it can integrate with other tools like WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, and more, to enhance the functionality of your website. It also allows users to utilize dynamic content, such as post data and user data, to create personalized and dynamic pages.

The million-dollar question;

Does Elementor Slow Down Your Site?

NO, Elementor does NOT slow down your website. This is because Elementor is designed to be lightweight and should not significantly slow down your site. Of course, there are many counterarguments and opinions that Elementor adds extra markup on your WordPress website among others.

This is true but that does not justify the claim that the page builder slows sites down.

As a way to throttle and limit the impact the page builder adds to your WordPress website, Elementor has implemented several performance improvements which can be found under Elementor > Settings > Experiments.

In a click or two, you’re able to enable or disable a feature and that would be just the thing you have to do to witness huge performance changes on your site.

Elementor

Some of the key performance improvements you can activate to see drastic performance improvements on your website are;

  1. Optimized DOM output
  2. Improved asset loading
  3. Improved CSS loading

Note:

From experience, Elementor websites are hugely impacted by the number of elements/widgets you use on your pages.

Sometimes it could be because you have some widgets that are active but not used anywhere on the page yet this could increase the page requests.

Secondly, your website content when it comes to using media (images and videos) and finally, your hosting provider. These 3 are cumbersome when it comes to site speed optimization.

Generally, to improve your website’s performance, it’s good to optimize your images and videos, minify CSS and javascript, and use caching tools.

Elementor Performance

Elementor performance refers to how quickly and efficiently a website an Elementor website loads and functions for users. Good Elementor performance would mean that the website loads quickly, pages are responsive and functional, and there are minimal errors or issues that affect the user experience. 

Factors that can impact Elementor’s performance include:

  • Size and number of elements on a page
  • The number of active plugins, and 
  • The server resources are available on the website. 

Improving Elementor performance can be done through a variety of methods such as optimizing images, using a caching plugin, and leveraging a content delivery network (CDN) to reduce the time it takes for pages to load.

Elementor Speed Optimization

Elementor Speed Optimization refers to techniques and strategies used to improve the loading speed of a website built using the Elementor page builder plugin for WordPress.

In fact, I shared some tips about Elementor speed optimization in my recently released Elementor Pro BootCamp course.

Speed optimization may include but is not limited to optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript, using a caching plugin, and leveraging a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare to reduce the time it takes for a page to load for users.

Some best practices for optimizing the speed of a website built with Elementor include:

Optimizing images: Compressing images and using appropriate file types (such as JPEG for photographs and PNG for graphics with transparent backgrounds) can reduce the size of images and improve loading times.

You can check out this blog post and video on how to compress images for web usage by up to 94%.

Minifying code: Minifying CSS and JavaScript files can reduce the size of these files, improving the speed at which the website loads.

Caching: Using a caching plugin can help to speed up the loading time of your website by storing a static version of your pages, which can be served to users more quickly than dynamic pages.

Leveraging a CDN: A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to reduce the time it takes for pages to load by caching static files on servers located in different regions of the world.

Optimizing the database: Regularly cleaning up the database and deleting unnecessary data can help to improve the overall performance of the website

Using a lightweight theme: Using a lightweight theme that is optimized for performance can help to speed up the loading times of your website.

Note:

Always create a backup before making any changes to your website.

That said, let’s look at some possible reasons why your Elementor website might be slow and what you can do about it.

Also read: What Is A Storyboard In Web Design?

Possible reasons why your Elementor website is slow

1. Poor hosting 

Your website’s load time can be slowed down by a poor hosting provider. Make sure your hosting company is capable of handling the volume of traffic to your website.

It’s also important to keep in mind that free or shared hosting services may also contribute to the slowdown of your Elementor website.

2. Unoptimized and large Images

If your pages include large images or if you have unoptimized images, especially if they are placed in loaded areas like the header and footer, this can contribute to the slowing down of your Elementor website. 

You can use tools like TinyPNG to compress your images without losing quality. Adjust your image sizes using your MacOS photo preview app > Tools > Adjust size.

Alternatively, you can use Photoshop or Photopea a free online photo editor. Try to keep your images below 1M if you can.

Here is my recommended way to optimize images for your website.

3. Conflicting plugins

Check your site for any plugin conflicts, and make sure you deactivate or delete any plugins that are causing issues. That aside, keeping your plugins updated will save you from headaches and a white screen of death as a result of an error within your website’s PHP files or database.

4. External scripts

Using external scripts like Google Maps, Facebook share, Avatar images, and others may considerably increase the number of external requests to be made whenever your website is loaded thereby slowing down. 

Try deactivating or limiting the usage of features that require external services or sources like remote Google Fonts among others for them to be active or accessed on your website.

5. Plugins

The more plugins you have running on your WordPress website, the more resources and requests that will be made to and fro your web servers and external sources hence making your website slow down. If you are not using certain plugins, deactivate and delete them to improve your website’s speed. 

6. Themes

The theme you use may contribute to the slowdown of your website. A well-coded theme employs techniques and best practices that match great coding standards for WordPress. Try switching between themes and spot some performance changes or you may check out my list of the best WordPress themes for Elementor.  

Summary of Elementor Speed Tips

  • Configure caching and minifying plugins for your site
  • Install a fast, efficient, and lightweight theme
  • Use a good hosting provider which is sufficient for your website traffic
  • Use optimized images and videos
  • Limit the use of unnecessary plugins, widgets, and add-ons
  • Disable Elementor Icons from loading on your entire website
  • Use WP Rocket or NitroPack to eliminate unused CSS and execute other performance improvements
  • Load all your fonts locally. You can also download Google Fonts and load them locally in your Elementor website
  • Avoid section nesting and elements in the design of your website.

Elementor Performance FAQs

Does Elementor harm SEO?

Not necessarily. Although installing and activating the Elementor plugin may slightly have an impact on your website which may have an influence on SEO, it shouldn’t be enough to change your existing SEO rankings.

Are Elementor Websites Fast?

Apparently, Elementor is the fastest website builder for WordPress. Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that some websites may have unique configurations that result in a delayed loading time.

How can I improve my Elementor website speed?

Yes, here are a few tricks you can try to improve the speed of your Elementor website:

Choose a good host for your website
Use a lightweight theme
Optimize your images and videos
Minify JS and CSS files
Use an advanced cache mechanism
Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

Should I use Elementor or not?

Definitely use Elementor if you are looking for a fast, easy-to-use, responsive, drag-and-drop page builder with lots of free and paid themes, templates and widgets to help you build your brand.

In conclusion

Your site speed may depend on how you configure and optimize your website. In fact, Elementor’s features may actually speed up your website when used properly.

To find the best remedy, it’s important to identify the precise source of your website’s speed issue. Make sure you examine the speed of your website’s page load time and pinpoint the key problem areas.

Tip:

You can check your site’s performance with the help of tools like GTmetrix, Google Lighthouse, and PageSpeed Insights. With these, you will get a detailed report of your website’s issues and how to fix them.

I hope after reading this article you now have a better understanding of Elementor and its performance.

For any comments, questions, or suggestions, please use the comments box below. And please remember to subscribe to my Youtube channel and newsletter for more tips and tutorials.

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Hamza
Hamza
Hamza comes from a design background with over 10years of experience in Web and Media design. He enjoys making web design videos on his YouTube channel GoTechUG. He also writes web design articles on this website. In his free time, Hamza loves riding a bicycle, swimming or going hiking.

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