WordPress Performance

They are the three numbers Google relies on to grade how a page feels to a real visitor. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how quickly the main content shows up. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) looks at how fast the page reacts once someone clicks or types. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) catches whether the layout jumps around while everything loads. Google reads all three into its rankings.

It helps to a degree, mostly for people returning to a page they have already loaded. The trouble is that a plugin bolted onto WordPress never reaches the things making the site slow in the first place: a bloated plugin list, a database churning through repeat work, an outdated PHP version and a shared host you split with hundreds of other sites. It quiets the symptoms for a while, but the cause is still sitting there.

FrankenPHP is a modern application server for PHP, built on top of the Caddy web server. What makes Worker Mode different is memory: instead of rebuilding WordPress from nothing on every request, the server keeps the application loaded between visits. That skips the entire startup phase, and response times collapse as a result. TTFB usually settles under 30 ms, where a standard PHP-FPM stack often spends 200-300 ms before it has even begun to answer.

For a site starting out on shared hosting, a rebuild typically delivers a 10-20x improvement in response time. To put a real number on it: one client page took 4.2 seconds on the old setup, and today the same page answers in roughly 180 milliseconds, with Core Web Vitals turning from red to green in the process. Your exact gain depends on where you start, but the direction is the same every time.

It does, and from two directions at once. Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals are part of how it ranks pages, so the raw numbers count on their own. On top of that, people behave differently on a slow page: they give up sooner, stay for less time and open fewer pages. Search engines read that behaviour as a sign of low quality, which drags you down further still.

Yes. We begin every engagement by measuring, with a thorough performance analysis that puts a name to each bottleneck. Sometimes a plugin cleanup and some sensible caching are enough; other times the infrastructure underneath has to be replaced before anything else makes a dent. Once we know which situation you are in, you get a straight answer and a plan that tackles the most valuable fixes first.

A performance review with concrete recommendations starts at NOK 10,000, and what the implementation lands at depends on how much work the site needs. A simple cleanup costs far less than rebuilding the infrastructure from the ground up. Choose managed hosting with FrankenPHP from NOK 3,000/month and continuous performance monitoring comes with it, so a slow decline gets caught long before it turns into a problem.

Each one marks a different point on the same timeline, from request to finished page. TTFB (Time to First Byte) tells you when the server starts responding at all. FCP (First Contentful Paint) is the moment the first pixel appears on screen. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is when the main content finally settles into place and the page feels done. All three shape the experience, though Google gives LCP the most weight.