A slow Divi site is not just a bad user experience — it directly affects your search rankings. Google has used page speed as a ranking factor since 2010 for desktop and 2018 for mobile, and since 2021 Core Web Vitals scores are a formal part of the search ranking algorithm.
The good news is that most Divi sites have the same handful of fixable problems dragging their score down. This guide walks you through how to check your score, what the numbers actually mean, and how to fix the most impactful issues — in order of effort versus reward.
Run Your PageSpeed Test
Go to pagespeed.web.dev and enter your Divi site URL. Run the test twice — once for mobile and once for desktop. The mobile score is the one Google primarily uses for rankings, and it is almost always lower than desktop.
You will see four scores: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. For ranking purposes, focus on Performance. Anything above 90 is excellent. 50–89 is average. Below 50 needs attention.
Below the scores you will see two sections worth understanding: Metrics and Opportunities.
Understanding the Metrics
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for the largest visible element on the page — usually a hero image or heading — to fully load. Google's target is under 2.5 seconds. On most Divi sites, a large uncompressed hero image is the single biggest LCP culprit.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual instability — elements jumping around as the page loads. Divi's image modules without explicit width and height attributes often cause CLS. A score under 0.1 is good.
Total Blocking Time (TBT) measures how much JavaScript is blocking the browser from responding to user input. Divi's own JavaScript, combined with third-party scripts, is frequently the main TBT driver.
First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures how quickly the first piece of content appears. Usually influenced by server response time and render-blocking resources.
The Most Common Divi PageSpeed Problems — And How to Fix Them
1. Uncompressed Images (Biggest Impact, Easiest Fix)
The single highest-impact thing you can do for your Divi PageSpeed score is compress your images. Images are typically the largest assets on any Divi page — hero sections, gallery modules, blog featured images, background images — and uncompressed they can easily add several megabytes to a page load.
Google PageSpeed specifically flags "Serve images in next-gen formats" (WebP) and "Efficiently encode images" as opportunities when it finds large unoptimised images.
The fix: install Divi Image Compressor. It automatically compresses every image on upload using lossy compression (configurable quality level), converts to WebP, and can bulk compress your existing media library. No configuration required. Most Divi sites see their LCP score improve significantly after compressing their hero and above-the-fold images.
2. Render-Blocking Resources
Divi loads a significant amount of CSS and JavaScript. If these files block the browser from rendering the page, your FCP and LCP scores suffer. In PageSpeed, look for the "Eliminate render-blocking resources" opportunity.
The fix: enable Divi's built-in Static CSS File Generation under Divi → Theme Options → Performance. This combines and minifies Divi's CSS output. Also enable Critical CSS, which extracts the above-the-fold styles and loads the rest asynchronously.
3. No Caching
Without caching, WordPress generates each page from scratch on every visit — querying the database, running PHP, assembling HTML. This adds hundreds of milliseconds of server response time.
The fix: install a caching plugin. WP Rocket is the most compatible with Divi and requires minimal configuration. W3 Total Cache and LiteSpeed Cache are solid free alternatives. Most managed hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround) also include server-level caching that handles this automatically.
4. Too Many Plugins Loading Scripts on Every Page
Every plugin that loads JavaScript or CSS adds to your page weight. Many plugins load their assets on every page even when they are only needed on one or two.
The fix: use the Query Monitor plugin to see which plugins are loading scripts on each page. Use Asset CleanUp or WP Rocket's asset management to dequeue scripts and styles on pages that do not need them.
5. Unoptimised Google Fonts
Divi loads Google Fonts by default.
Every font family and weight is a separate HTTP request. If you are loading four font families with three weights each, that is twelve extra requests before the page can render.
The fix: in Divi → Theme Options → General, reduce your font selections to a maximum of two families. Under Performance, enable the option to combine Google Fonts requests into a single URL. Better still, self-host your fonts using a plugin like OMGF to eliminate the Google Fonts DNS lookup entirely.
6. No Image Lazy Loading
Images below the fold should not load until the user scrolls to them. Loading all images on page load wastes bandwidth and slows the initial render.
The fix: Divi has native lazy loading built in under Divi → Theme Options → Performance. Enable lazy loading for images. This is safe to turn on for virtually all Divi sites.
A Realistic Target for Divi Sites
A Divi site can realistically achieve a mobile Performance score of 80–95 with the above fixes in place. The floor is usually image compression and caching — fix those two things and most Divi sites jump 15–25 points immediately.
If you are starting from below 50 on mobile, prioritise in this order:
- Compress and convert images to WebP
- Enable Divi's Static CSS and Critical CSS
- Install a caching plugin
- Reduce Google Fonts
- Enable lazy loading
After those five changes, run PageSpeed again. In most cases you will have solved the majority of the problem without touching code.
Divi Image Compressor
Divi Image Compressor does one thing: compresses and converts every image on your Divi site, automatically, on your own server, without any setup beyond installing the plugin. For Divi 4 and Divi 5 sites, that is exactly what you need.
Divi Image Compressor is available as a one-time purchase on the Elegant Themes Divi Marketplace. There are no subscriptions, no API keys, and no limits on how many images you can compress.
Divi Image Compressor is developed by DiviPerfect — a suite of Divi 5 plugins built for freelancers, agencies, and businesses. Questions? Email us at hello@diviperfect.com or visit diviperfect.com.