The Elementor settings that matter for speed are Optimized Image Loading, Lazy Load Background Images, Load Google Fonts Locally, Optimized Gutenberg Loading and Inline Font Icons. Switch them on, then fix the things no setting can: hosting, page caching, image sizes and pages nested too deep. Elementor has a reputation for slow sites, and some of it is earned. But when we dig into a slow Elementor site, the builder itself is rarely the main culprit. It’s usually a combination of cheap hosting, 4MB hero images, five add-on plugins loading their own scripts, and pages nested ten containers deep.
A well-built Elementor site on decent hosting can be quick. What follows is roughly in order of how much it matters.
Measure first, so you know if anything worked
Before changing a single setting, run your homepage and one inner page through PageSpeed Insights. Write down the mobile scores and, more usefully, the individual metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (how long until the main content appears), Cumulative Layout Shift (how much the page jumps around) and Interaction to Next Paint (how quickly it responds to taps).
Look at the mobile results, not desktop. Your customers are mostly on phones, and the mobile test uses a throttled connection that shows up problems desktop tests hide.
Run each test two or three times. Scores wobble between runs, so don’t celebrate or panic over a single reading.
The Elementor settings worth checking
At the time of writing (late 2026), Elementor’s performance options live in WP Admin under Elementor > Editor > Settings, split across a Performance tab and a Features tab. Setting names and locations have moved around between versions, so if yours look different, check Elementor’s current list of performance features.
| Setting | Where | What it does | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimized Image Loading | Performance tab | Gives the main (LCP) image loading priority and lazy-loads images further down the page | Turn on. One of the easiest wins |
| Lazy Load Background Images | Performance tab | Delays background images below the first one until they’re needed | Turn on, then check your hero still loads instantly |
| Load Google Fonts Locally | Performance tab | Serves Google Fonts from your own server instead of Google’s | Turn on. Also helps with privacy |
| Optimized Gutenberg Loading | Performance tab | Stops loading block editor styles and scripts that Elementor pages don’t use | Turn on if your pages and posts are built in Elementor |
| Inline Font Icons | Features tab | Renders icons as inline SVG instead of loading full icon font libraries | Turn on, then check your icons |
| Element Caching | Features tab (experimental) | Stores the rendered HTML of widgets so the server doesn’t rebuild them every visit | Test carefully. See below |
A few notes on these.
Optimized Image Loading matters because the largest image on screen when the page loads is usually what PageSpeed Insights measures as LCP. Elementor says this feature typically improves page load times by 5 to 10%. Your mileage will vary, but there’s little downside.
Load Google Fonts Locally is worth a special mention because it changed. Elementor’s Google Fonts notes say that from version 3.32.1 the setting defaults to Disabled, and anyone who had it on before needs to switch it on again. If your site was set up a while ago and has been updated since, check it.
Element Caching can cut server work and reduce time to first byte, but Elementor’s Element Caching guide warns it shouldn’t be used on elements with dynamic tags or other personalised content, such as a widget showing the visitor’s name or a list of the latest posts. It’s off by default for that reason. On a mostly static brochure site it can help. On a site with lots of dynamic content, leave it alone unless you have time to test every page.
After changing settings, go to Elementor > Tools and use Clear files & data (sometimes labelled Regenerate CSS), then clear any caching plugin or host cache. Then retest.
Build habits matter more than settings
Settings shave off the rough edges. The way pages are built decides how heavy they are in the first place.
Keep the structure shallow
Every container adds markup the browser has to process. We’ve opened pages where a single line of text sits inside five nested containers, each with its own padding, because someone kept wrapping things to fix alignment. Use the Structure panel to look at the layers on your heaviest pages. If a container isn’t setting a background, direction, alignment or spacing that’s needed, remove it.
Moving older pages from sections and columns to containers can trim markup too, as long as the conversion is tidy.
Size images before you upload them
This is still the biggest single fix on most small business sites we look at. A photo straight off a phone or a photographer’s export can be 4,000 to 6,000 pixels wide and several megabytes. Your hero area is rarely more than 1,920 pixels wide on a big monitor.
Our rules of thumb:
- Full-width hero images: about 1,920 pixels wide, exported as WebP or a well-compressed JPG
- Content images: 1,000 to 1,200 pixels wide is plenty
- Logos: SVG where possible
- Avoid background videos on mobile. If you must have one, give it a light poster image and consider hiding the video on phones
An image optimisation plugin (Elementor has its own, and there are several good alternatives) will help, but it’s a safety net. Don’t upload a 12MB file and trust a plugin to fix it.
Don’t load what you don’t use
Every add-on pack you install (the “100 extra widgets” type) brings its own CSS and JavaScript. Some load it on every page whether you use their widgets or not. If you installed an add-on for one countdown timer two years ago, it may be costing you on every page view.
Go through your plugins once a year. For each Elementor add-on, ask what you’re using from it. If the answer is one widget, see if Elementor Pro already does it.
The same goes for fonts. Each font family and weight is a separate file. Two families with three weights each is reasonable. Four families with every weight is not.
Go easy on effects
Entrance animations, parallax backgrounds, sliders and carousels all need JavaScript, and many of them delay content appearing. Above the fold, avoid them entirely. A hero slider with five slides is slower to load and, in our experience, rarely gets anyone past slide two.
Watch third-party embeds
Google Maps embeds, booking widgets, chat bubbles, review feeds and social media feeds all pull code from someone else’s servers. They often account for a big share of the load on otherwise tidy pages. Where you can, replace a live map embed with a static map image that links to Google Maps, and load chat widgets only on the pages where people need them.
What no Elementor setting can fix
Hosting. Elementor is a heavier piece of software than a basic theme, and it needs a server with enough memory and a modern PHP version. Budget shared hosting crammed with thousands of other sites will be slow no matter how you configure Elementor. We go through what to look for in will your hosting cope with Elementor? Cheap hosting is a false economy: you save a few dollars a month and lose visitors every day. It’s the main reason we host the sites we build through our web design service ourselves.
Caching. The Elementor plugin doesn’t do full page caching. You need it from your host or a caching plugin. Page caching stores a ready-made copy of each page so the server doesn’t build it from scratch for every visitor, and on most sites it’s the single largest improvement to server response time.
Bloated plugins outside Elementor. Security suites, page builders you’ve stopped using, sliders, multiple SEO plugins: all of these add load.
A sensible order of work
If your Elementor site is slow, this is the order we’d tackle it in:
- Test with PageSpeed Insights (mobile) and write down the numbers
- Check hosting and page caching. Fix these first if they’re weak
- Resize and compress the biggest images, starting with the homepage hero
- Switch on the Elementor performance settings above, one at a time, checking the site after each
- Remove unused plugins and add-ons
- Simplify the heaviest pages: fewer containers, fewer effects, fewer embeds
- Retest and compare
Mobile layout and speed often go hand in hand, so it’s worth reading our guide to responsive editing in Elementor alongside this one.
Still crawling after all seven steps? The numbers from step one are what we’d need to work out where the time is going, so include them when you send us the address. Speed work on existing sites is part of our WordPress and Elementor fixes.