Every link on a webpage does more than let someone click through to another page. It also sends a signal, and a single line of code attached to that link can completely change what that signal means to a search engine.
Images are usually the biggest files on any web page. Upload them without thinking, and your site slows down, your Google rankings take a hit, and visitors leave before the page finishes loading. Get them right, and you claim one of the easiest performance wins available, all without needing a developer.
When most people decide to build a WordPress site, picking a theme feels like the obvious first step. Browse a marketplace, find something that looks close enough, and start customising. It’s how WordPress has worked for years, and for a long time, it was a reasonable approach.
A slow website doesn’t just frustrate visitors. It quietly costs you rankings, enquiries, and sales, often before you even know there’s a problem. Google has used site speed as a ranking factor since 2010, but the way it’s measured has changed significantly. Speed is one factor among many.
You’re planning a new website, and someone has told you it could be built in two different ways: a traditional CMS like WordPress or a static site generator like Astro. Now you’re trying to figure out what that actually means for you.
Your website could be hosted on the same server as thousands of other businesses, managed by your agency through a cPanel account they acquired for a few dollars a month. You’d have no way of knowing. And in many cases, it wouldn’t even be their fault.