O que você vai conseguir: Faster WordPress site with improved Core Web Vitals and better ranking on Google

Ferramentas necessárias

PageSpeed Insights — To measure speed and Core Web Vitals before and after each change.
GTmetrix — For detailed performance analysis and loading waterfall.
Cloudflare — Free CDN to serve static files faster

Passo a passo

1
Measure the current speed and create the baseline.
Access pagespeed.web.dev and gtmetrix.com with your website's main URL. Take a screenshot or note the values: LCP, FID/INP, CLS, TTFB, and total loading time. This is the baseline — you will compare it with the new numbers after each step to measure the real impact of each optimization.
2
Install and configure a cache plugin.
Install WP Rocket (paid, R$ 200–400/year) or W3 Total Cache (free). In WP Rocket, enable: page caching, browser caching, CSS/JS minification, and lazy loading of images. This step alone usually reduces loading time by 40–60% and should be the first one to be done.
3
Optimize all images to WebP.
Install the Smush, ShortPixel, or WebP Express plugin. Configure it to automatically convert JPG and PNG images to the WebP format (30–50% smaller with the same visual quality) and enable batch compression for all images already uploaded. Enable "lazy load" to load images below the fold only when the user scrolls the page.
4
Activate a CDN with Cloudflare
Create a free account at cloudflare.com and add your domain. Change the nameservers to those of Cloudflare. Activate the free plan that already includes global CDN, SSL, DDoS protection, and "Auto Minify" for CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. The CDN serves files from the server geographically closest to the visitor.
5
Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts.
Go to Plugins > Installed and deactivate one by one the ones you don't use. For each active plugin, ask: "Without this plugin, does the site break or lose essential functionality?" If not, deactivate and delete it. Heavy plugins are often the biggest villains of performance.
6
Check and improve the hosting if necessary.
If after all the previous steps the TTFB is still above 600ms, the problem is the server. Cheap shared hosting has high TTFB due to overcrowding. Migrate to a hosting service with PHP 8.x, MySQL 8, Redis/Memcached, and NVMe SSD.