How to Optimize Your Elementor Website for Speed (with FastPixel)

Every so often, we see discussions about how Elementor slows down websites and hurts performance. While this may have been true years ago (and let’s be honest, it still is to a certain extent), Elementor has made huge strides in improving performance. When paired with proper optimization, you can achieve great results without compromising on functionality or design.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to optimizing Elementor for speed — and yes, FastPixel plays a key role.

1. Start with Good Hosting

Avoid budget shared hosting if performance matters to you. That means ignoring basically any hosting provider with very low pricing only available if you purchase X years of service in advance. Instead, go for a dedicated server or VPS from a smaller, specialized hosting provider. A setup using Apache with underlying Nginx works great for Elementor sites, basically because you’ll be able to use the .htaccess file and keep better performance than with Apache alone.

You might think, “Why does hosting matter if FastPixel is going to do the heavy lifting for me anyway?” The answer is that FastPixel won’t always have your pages cached—and no other tool will either. At some point, a page will inevitably be uncached, and that’s when you need a fast server to deliver the uncached page as quickly as possible.

2. Choose the Right Theme

Stick with lightweight themes like Elementor’s own Hello Theme. Pair it with a child theme for customization without affecting updates.

Other lightweight options are Neve, GeneratePress or one of the WordPress default themes, such as Twenty Twenty-Five.

3. Optimize Fonts

Load your fonts locally instead of relying on Google Fonts. Convert them to .woff2 format and limit styles as much as possible. This means not using bold or italic unless you really need them. Also, Elementor makes it easy to upload custom fonts, so take advantage of that feature.

Luckily, FastPixel makes all these optimization techniques feel outdated. FastPixel embeds the fonts in the source code, so there is no external call made and the fonts load extremely fast. And the best thing is that you don’t need to do any setup; simply install the plugin and that’s it!

4. Use Performance Plugins Wisely

Tools like Perfmatters can help minify, defer, and lazy-load CSS and JS effectively. Check out their documentation and guides to configure it optimally. For caching, avoid overly complex solutions. Lightweight options like WP Super Cache integrate seamlessly with Apache setups.

However, these tools can be very complicated to use, especially for non-advanced users who just want to speed up their site as easily and headache-free as possible. That’s where FastPixel comes in: it applies the necessary optimizations to the CSS and JS right out of the box based on the preset you select, and they will always be loaded from the fastest CDN (powered by bunny.net), saving server resources. If any issues arise or you need further customization, you can easily tweak the settings on the Settings page.

5. Leverage FastPixel for Image Optimization

Images are critical for performance. Since FastPixel is created by the team behind ShortPixel, you can expect the same benefits in the FastPixel plugin:

• Convert and serve images in next-gen formats like WebP or AVIF.
• Automatically resize and serve images based on screen size.
• Implement lazy loading to ensure only visible images are loaded initially. FastPixel is designed to handle large image libraries without server overload, ensuring smooth performance across the board.

And again, all of this will be available by just installing the plugin. No need to go into complicated setups.

6. Build Smarter in Elementor

• Keep the design simple and focus on mobile-first layouts.
• Minimize the use of containers and complex page structures to reduce DOM size.
• Avoid unnecessary features like carousels unless they’re critical. Since version 3.26, Elementor only loads swiper.js on relevant pages, but less is still more.

With this approach, you can enjoy the best of Elementor’s functionality while maintaining excellent page speed and performance. You can also download the plugin from the WordPress repository and try FastPixel for free.