How we made our own website faster on phones — and what actually mattered

So we treated pikus.media like a client project: measure, fix the biggest problems first, measure again. Today the homepage scores 86 on phones and 100 on desktop. Here is what changed, what moved the numbers and what we deliberately left alone.

The numbers

What we changed

1. The background video waits a moment

The hero video was 2.7 MB — more than everything else on the page together. It still plays on every screen, phones included. It simply starts a moment later: after the first touch, scroll or key press, or after three seconds at the latest. Until then the section shows its still image, so the first view is light and does not change while it loads.

2. Switching off plugin files the page does not use

WordPress plugins usually load their files on every page, whether they are needed or not. Our course plugin alone added a 285 KB stylesheet to the homepage, which has no courses on it. We switched off the unused course, listing and slider files on the pages that do not use them — and kept them where they are needed, such as the course library and checkout.

3. Stopping the page from jumping

A page that moves while you try to tap it feels slow even when it is not. We found three causes: the header button changed width when its font arrived and pushed the menu to a second line, the menu icons loaded late, and the cookie banner arrived without its styles. Each got a small fix — a fallback font with the same width, icons loaded before the first paint, and the banner styled from the start. Layout shift went from 0.36 to 0.015.

4. Images that fit the screen

Large photos used as section backgrounds were sent at 2,560 pixels. Phones now get the smallest version WordPress already made that still looks sharp, and computers get one of up to 1,536 pixels, all in WebP. Same image, a fraction of the size.

5. Only the styles the first screen needs

Instead of making the browser download every stylesheet before it can draw anything, the first screen gets the few styles it needs straight away and the rest follows. This now works on computers too, which helped take desktop from 96 to 100.

6. Scripts in the right order

Course, payment and editor scripts the homepage does not need on arrival now wait for the first interaction. Our chat button appears right after the page loads, so visitors can still ask a question straight away.

What we did not change

Delaying analytics and ad tracking until the first tap is a popular trick for a higher score. We measured it: one extra point. The cost is losing visits from people who leave quickly — exactly the data you need when you pay for ads. For a business that advertises, honest measurement beats a prettier number, so tracking still starts as soon as a visitor gives consent.

Three lessons for your own site

• Test on mobile. Our desktop score was 96 all along; the problem only showed up on phones.
• Look at the heaviest things first. One video and one stylesheet were most of the waiting time.
• Measure more than once. Lab scores vary from run to run. Our phone results ranged from 85 to 95 depending on how fast the server answered, so we report the median, not the best result.

How we did it

All of this was done with PMS Performance Pro, the WordPress optimisation plugin we build at PMScripts, without changing the site’s design or its content. The plugin now has three one-click levels: Minimum for safe basics, Medium for lighter styles, fonts and images with videos playing straight away, and Maximum — what this site uses — which also lets scripts and the background video wait a moment. If your site feels slow on phones, get in touch — we are happy to take a look.