The 9-point speed list: everything already taught, viewed through the speed lens
Almost nothing in the speed episode is new — that's the point. The course's habits (Hello theme, few plugins, local fonts, sized images, global styles, dynamic content) WERE the speed strategy all along.
The list, with the speed-specific additions: (1) Hello theme — 'an empty theme... at least doesn't slow down your website'; (2) good hosting, preferably CLOUD tier (Hostinger's affordable, SiteGround's premium) — 'don't be cheap when it comes to hosting'; (3) fewer plugins — with his own confession: livingwithpixels.com runs THREE CPT systems (CPT UI + ACF + JetEngine) from years of accretion and needs a rebuild; (4) local fonts; (5) images under 500KB and under 2560px wide (WordPress errors above it); (6) styling global via site settings; (7) dynamic content everywhere — 'any content that appears in 2 places... shouldn't be saved 2 times on the server'; (8) lazy-load background images (the features toggle) — tested per site, off if animations stutter; (9) ONE optimizer plugin, matched to the host (Speed Optimizer on SiteGround, LiteSpeed Cache on LiteSpeed hosts) — stacking optimizers 'will become messy,' and some 'cheat with the Google SiteSpeed results.'
The honest framing seals it: he doesn't know how optimizers work internally and says so — the checklist is validated by outcomes (90+ PageSpeed, ~1-1.5s loads), not theory.
The living-with-pixels self-audit: three CPT plugins doing one job, named as his own anti-pattern to rebuild — the fewer-plugins rule applied to its own author.
Speed is rankings (Google demotes slow sites) plus UX — and the list proves it's a byproduct of discipline, not a specialist skill.
Speed optimization is a post-build specialist pass.
It's the course's standing habits plus three additions (lazy-load, optimizer choice, hosting tier) — mostly decided before the first page is built.
Don't be cheap when it comes to hosting.
How this exactly works, I have no idea, to be honest... But what I do know is that my websites almost always hit, like, 90 plus on the Google page speed test.
["The 90+ PageSpeed evidence standard maps to your site-health-audit's performance checks."]
Go deeper
In one line: Speed protocol: Hello theme · cloud hosting · minimal plugins · local fonts · images <500KB and <2560px · global styling · dynamic content over duplication · lazy-load backgrounds (tested) · one host-matched optimizer. Target evidence: 90+ PageSpeed, ~1-1.5s loads.
Image ceilings: 2560px width (WordPress error threshold) and 500KB weight (l1425264 06:03)
Optimizer rules: one only; host-matched beats famous; some plugins game the metrics (l1425264 08:04)
Lazy-load caveat: 'if your images start acting weird, then I do not recommend to use this' (l1425264 08:04)
Affiliate disclosure made openly: commission on the Hostinger/SiteGround links (l1425264 04:02)
His stack humility: 'I'm also just a no code developer' — outcome-validated, not theory-validated (l1425264 10:04)
Run PageSpeed on your slowest site and walk the 9 points as a diff — nearly every red flag maps to one of them.
▶ Watch this taught:
Answer from memory first — the recall attempt is what makes it stick. Then reveal.
Why does the list warn against stacking optimizer plugins?
They mostly do the same work; overlapping rewrites make 'your code become messy' — and a second optimizer adds risk, not speed.