Largest Contentful Paint
The main image or heading rendering late. We remove render-blocking CSS and JavaScript, preload what matters, right-size and modernise images, and cut the server response time underneath it all.
Grow · Performance
A green score in a testing tool is not the same as a fast site for the people using it. We work from field data, find what is actually costing you load time, and fix it at the source — so the improvement survives the next plugin update.
Typical result from a full optimization engagement.
The problem
Lab tools test one page, on one connection, from one location, with an empty cache. Your customers arrive on mobile data with a full plugin stack running. Field data tells a very different story to a lab score.
Page caching makes the homepage fly and does nothing for cart, checkout, My Account or any logged-in session. The pages closest to revenue are the ones caching cannot touch.
Aggressive minification broke the layout, so half the optimisations got switched back off. Now there are three caching plugins fighting each other and nobody remembers which settings matter.
Someone optimised images once and moved on. Then the database grew, revisions piled up, two plugins were added and the gains quietly disappeared. Speed without guardrails does not hold.
How it works
Real-user metrics first, so we optimise what your visitors actually experience.
Waterfall, server timing, database profiling and a cost-per-plugin breakdown.
Ranked by impact against effort, so the biggest wins land in the first week.
Applied on staging and reviewed, so nothing breaks in pursuit of a metric.
Before and after on the same pages, same conditions, with field data confirming it.
Budgets and monitoring so the gains do not quietly erode over the next quarter.
Results
WooCommerce performance
A catalogue that had tripled in two years was timing out on filtered category pages. The fix was not a caching plugin — it was database indexes, a rewritten product query and an object cache in front of it.
Publisher performance
A content site was failing Cumulative Layout Shift because ad slots collapsed and expanded as they loaded. We reserved space for every slot and deferred the tag manager without touching fill rate.
Capabilities
Engagement
Fixed fee
A written report with field and lab data, a cost-per-plugin breakdown, and a prioritised list of fixes ranked by impact against effort.
Fixed price after audit
We implement the prioritised fixes on staging, verify each one against the same pages and conditions, then launch with before-and-after numbers documented.
Monthly
Monitoring, performance budgets and a set number of hours each month, so new plugins and new content do not quietly undo the work.
Questions
If your situation isn't covered here, send us your URL and we'll reply with a straight answer.
Because a lab score tests one page from one location with an empty cache, while your visitors arrive on real devices and real connections. Google ranks on field data from actual Chrome users, not on the lab score. We always start from field data, which is why our before-and-after numbers reflect what people genuinely experience.
Rarely. A caching plugin helps anonymous visitors on cacheable pages, and does nothing for cart, checkout, My Account or any logged-in session. It also cannot fix slow database queries, oversized images or a plugin loading its assets on every page. Caching is one layer of the answer, not the answer.
It depends entirely on what is wrong, which is why we audit before quoting. Sites carrying years of plugin accumulation and an untuned database usually see the largest gains. Sites already on good hosting with a lean stack see smaller but still meaningful ones. The audit tells you the realistic ceiling before you commit to the work.
Not the way we do it. Aggressive minification and asset combining are exactly what breaks layouts, which is why so many people switch their optimisations back off. Everything is applied and reviewed on staging first, and we would rather leave a smaller gain on the table than ship a broken page.
Sometimes, and we will say so plainly if server response time is the bottleneck. Often it is not — a well-tuned site on mid-range hosting beats a bloated one on expensive hosting. We measure the server contribution specifically so the recommendation is based on your numbers, not a referral fee.
Performance budgets and monitoring. We document what each page should weigh and how fast it should render, then alert on regressions so a new plugin or an unoptimised image gets caught in days rather than discovered a quarter later. The retainer exists for exactly this reason.
Start here
The more you can tell us, the more useful our first reply will be. No sales sequence — one of the people who would actually do the work reads this.
Prefer email? hello@dotance.com