The cause of the delay can be several things, such as a server response time, caching, plugins or unoptimised images, which can cause a delay of about 5 seconds.
If you have already installed EWWW Image Optimizer, then I would strongly recommend you try WP-Optimize, which can help you optimize images, clean up WordPress database, unwanted revision logs and improve website performance with caching.
If the delay persists, review the website and see what is causing the problem, and do not install too many optimisation plugins.
Hey, is this a live business website? I noticed you have noindex,nofollow in the source code, which tells search engines not to index the site. That could, in the future, prevent it from showing up in search results, but I could be wrong. I also ran it through PageSpeed Insights(website check it out), and it shows you could shave off 1.3 seconds with details on whats causing it. This won’t explain everything but its a start. I’d also check the image sizes. The misted glass and van images seem to be loading larger than they’re displayed. I don’t think that’s the main issue, though, so I wouldn’t rush into changing everything. EWWW Image Optimizer could also be worth looking into could help with that
Like @hameem1102 mentioned, “it could be many things,” including caching, hosting, network conditions, and other factors PageSpeed doesn’t measure. I’d fix the indexing issue first if this is meant to be a public website, then look at caching and CSS/JavaScript loading, and finally optimize the images. After that, run PageSpeed a few times to check the results.
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This reply was modified 2 days, 6 hours ago by
ajr129.
Hi Gary, a few thoughts to add — an intermittent delay on first load of a simple site usually comes down to one of these, and it’s worth identifying which before adding more plugins:Server response time (TTFB). Open the site in Chrome, press F12, go to the Network tab and reload. Look at how long the first document request spends “waiting for server response”. If that’s consistently above 600–800ms, the bottleneck is the hosting/server rather than WordPress itself, and no plugin will fully fix that.Page caching. For a mostly static brochure site this makes the biggest visible difference. One well-configured caching plugin is enough (WP-Optimize as suggested above, or LiteSpeed Cache if your host runs LiteSpeed) — don’t stack several, as they tend to conflict.Images. Even basic sites often serve multi-megabyte photos. Compress existing images (EWWW Image Optimizer or ShortPixel) and resize uploads to sensible dimensions before adding them to pages.DNS. If the delay happens on the very first visit and the site then feels quick, slow DNS resolution can be the culprit rather than the site itself — worth ruling out.And yes — definitely fix the noindex, nofollow tag that was spotted. While that’s in your page source, Google will not index the site at all, so it can’t appear in search results no matter how fast it is. It’s usually left over from development (check Settings → Reading → “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”).One more thought, since this is a local locksmith business: once the site is fast and indexable, the thing that actually drives enquiries is local visibility — a claimed Google Business Profile, consistent name/address/phone number everywhere, and clear service-area pages. Page speed feeds into that too, as it’s a ranking factor. If you’d like a plain-English checklist to work through, this one is worth a look: https://rankmaple.ca
