The Only Way to Test a Wordpress Theme's Speed BEFORE Downloading It.

I have struggled with site speed a lot. One of the reasons is, that I have used slow themes. I have even paid for premium themes that were horribly slow.

The truth is, that MOST Wordpress themes, even premium themes, are SLOW! The developers lie to you that their themes are speed optimized, while they are NOT speed optimized at all.

I loved my latest premium theme, except for the fact that once again, it was SLOW! I had a hard time admitting it to myself, that I had once more fallen for a gorgeous looking theme that was badly coded and very slow.

I tried different site speed plugins to fix the issue, but nothing really worked. Trying to fix a slow theme with plugins is like putting bandages on an infected wound.

There is only one way to find out if a Wordpress theme actually is fast or not BEFORE you download it and waste your money. I wish I'd known this earlier, so I'm gonna share this with you now.

The Only Way to Check Site Speed Before Getting a New Theme.

So, there's a website called GTMetrix for checking site speed. This website also reports the fully loaded time (the time it takes for the whole website to load) and total page size, plus the amount of requests the site sends.

What you need to do is enter the Wordpress theme demo's URL in GTMetrix and test its speed.

I was quite horrified when I entered my latest favorite theme's demo in GTMetrix. I had already figured out this theme is very slow, and yes, the GTMetrix report confirms it. The fully loaded time is 7,9 seconds. Totally unacceptable! The total page size is also very big, and it sends many requests.

And this is just the theme demo. When you use this theme with a website with your blog content, more images and plugins, your website will be even slower than the demo!

Is There Any Fast Theme Out There? Yes, There Is.

As much as I like the look of Vilva Pro theme, I could no longer ignore how slow it is. My bounce rate has gone up again, and probably Google is not ranking me as well anymore, because my site is slow. Site speed is an important ranking factor.

I've paid for my mistakes, but now I'm done with slow themes. I even wondered are there any fast Wordpress themes out there. Fortunately, there are, but not many.

I was lucky to run into Astra theme. This is honestly one of the fastest Wordpress themes. And its FREE! Yes, there is a premium version too, but even the free version is very optimizable. Google fonts are included in the free version, you can change heading colors etc. And it's FAST!

I did change my theme to Astra theme, and my site speed score improved immediately. My desktop site speed is close to 100 now, WITHOUT any other site speed plugins except for lazy load and image optimization plugins. But I don't have any extra cache or minify plugins now.

Mobile speed still needs work, but probably accelerated mobile pages would solve the mobile speed issue. Astra theme premium has native AMP support. I might upgrade to premium, but I wanted to test the free version first before rushing into another premium theme again.

So, if you're looking for a free Wordpress theme that is FAST and optimizable, I can honestly recommend Astra theme. I have tried many slow and poorly coded Wordpress themes, so I know when I've found one that is actually fast.

Have you tried Astra theme? Have you also struggled with professional-looking, gorgeous Wordpress themes, that are poorly coded and SLOW? Please let me know!

Kirsti