Helpful Divi Built-in Performance Options in 2024: Explained

In the early days of Divi Theme, it was known for being this massive bloat on your WordPress website and the cause of all your performance-related issues. The solution for many hosting companies and plugin support teams was to suggest using a different theme. But that was then. What about now?

The Divi we know today has seen such significant performance improvements that no one (almost) is suggesting you change your theme to something else. Baked into Divi Themes Options is a set of toggles that allows you the flexibility (and ability) to push your site performance all the way across the finish line. You might not have to turn all the options on (every site is different), but you’ll notice a big difference.

NOTE: It’s encouraged that you use these Divi settings in combination with other caching solutions like WP-Rocket.

What are Divi Built-in Performance Options?

• Divi’s built-in performance settings offer easy access to crucial speed optimization tools, including Dynamic Module Framework, Dynamic JavaScript Libraries, and Critical CSS.
• Dynamic CSS and Dynamic Icons significantly enhance site speed by loading only the relevant styles and icons, reducing resource load and improving overall user experience.
• Combining Divi’s settings with third-party performance plugins can further enhance site efficiency, but thorough testing is necessary to avoid potential conflicts.

Divi Performance Settings Overview

Divi’s built-in performance settings form the foundation of its speed optimization strategy. Accessible via the Performance Tab in the Theme Options menu, these settings facilitate straightforward and effective speed enhancements. This Performance Tab significantly advances the accessibility of speed optimization for all users.

These settings go beyond faster load times; they aim to boost your Google PageSpeed scores, enhancing site ranking and user experience. Since the major updates in August 2021, Divi has concentrated on performance, introducing new settings to emphasize its commitment to speed and efficiency.

The performance settings collectively reduce loading times, significantly enhancing the user experience on your Divi site. Utilizing these built-in options ensures your site operates at peak efficiency, delivering content swiftly and smoothly to visitors.

Dynamic Module Framework

At the heart of Divi’s performance optimization is the Dynamic Module Framework. This innovative feature ensures that only the necessary scripts and styles are loaded based on the content of the page, significantly enhancing the user experience. By delivering only what’s needed, this framework helps to maintain quick loading times while offering extensive customization options.

One of the standout benefits of the Dynamic Module Framework is its ability to reduce the overall resource load on the server. This optimization is crucial for improving site performance, as it eliminates unnecessary backend processing related to unused modules. The modular approach of this framework means that Divi can scale with new features without increasing bloat, ensuring that your site remains fast and efficient.

Another key aspect of this framework is its ability to load and execute PHP functions only for the modules that are actively used on a page. This selective loading not only speeds up your site but also ensures that resources are used efficiently. Additionally, the introduction of Dynamic Icons in Divi 4.10 further enhances performance by loading only the necessary subsets of the icon set.

Utilizing the Dynamic Module Framework, the divi theme offers a robust solution to performance optimization and divi speed optimization. This ensures your site loads quickly and operates smoothly, providing a superior visitor experience.

Dynamic JavaScript Libraries

Dynamic JavaScript Libraries are another critical component of Divi’s performance optimization arsenal. This feature ensures that JavaScript files are loaded only when needed, eliminating unnecessary code and scripts that can slow down your site. By loading scripts on-demand, Divi significantly improves overall site speed.

The impact of these libraries is profound. When combined with other optimization features, they help to minimize the load time of your web pages, ensuring that visitors are not kept waiting. This lazy loading approach also contributes to reducing server load, making your site more efficient and responsive.

The result is a faster, more streamlined site that performs well even under heavy traffic. Utilizing Dynamic JavaScript Libraries ensures your Divi site delivers a swift and seamless user experience.

Dynamic CSS

Dynamic CSS is a game-changer when it comes to optimizing the styling of your Divi site. This feature creates unique stylesheets for each page, ensuring that only the CSS used on a specific page is loaded. The result is a significant reduction in CSS file size, which leads to faster page load times.

Focusing on loading only the necessary CSS, Dynamic CSS minimizes the bloat often accompanying extensive styling. This optimization enhances site speed, as smaller CSS files translate to quicker render times and a better user experience.

Dynamic CSS also plays a pivotal role in reducing render-blocking CSS requests, further improving your site’s performance. Utilizing this feature ensures your Divi site is not only visually appealing but also highly efficient.

Critical CSS

Critical CSS is essential for optimizing the initial load time of your Divi site. This feature prioritizes essential styles for above-the-fold content, ensuring that the most important parts of your page are displayed first. By deferring non-critical styles, Critical CSS helps to speed up the rendering process.

The benefits of Critical CSS are immediately noticeable. By focusing on above-the-fold content, your site provides an instant visual response, which is crucial for keeping visitors engaged. Divi’s ability to automatically manage critical and non-critical styles offers a significant advantage over other themes, simplifying the optimization process for users.

This feature ensures that your site loads efficiently, providing a seamless user experience from the moment visitors land on your page. Utilizing Critical CSS significantly enhances the performance of your Divi site.

Defer Gutenberg Block CSS

Deferring Gutenberg Block CSS is a powerful feature designed to enhance the speed of your Divi site. By moving Gutenberg block CSS to the footer, this feature prevents it from blocking the rendering of page content, resulting in faster load times. This optimization is particularly beneficial for pages created with the Divi Builder.

The primary advantage of deferring Gutenberg Block CSS is the improvement in initial rendering speed. By loading CSS in the footer, the visible content of your page appears more quickly, enhancing the user experience. This approach helps to minimize render-blocking requests, ensuring that your site loads efficiently. Additionally, implementing a gutenberg block css file can further optimize your site’s performance.

Implementing this feature ensures your Divi site provides a swift and seamless browsing experience, keeping visitors engaged and satisfied.

Improve Google Fonts Loading

Optimizing the loading of Google Fonts is crucial for improving your Divi site’s performance. Divi enhances Google Fonts loading by leveraging browser caching and loading needed fonts inline, which reduces unnecessary requests. This approach significantly enhances loading speed, ensuring that your site performs well even under heavy traffic.

Limiting support for older browsers is another effective strategy. By reducing the file sizes associated with Google Fonts, this feature helps to improve load times and overall site performance. These optimizations collectively contribute to a faster, more efficient site that delivers a better user experience.

Optimizing Google Fonts loading ensures your Divi site is both visually appealing and highly efficient. This is a key component in enhancing overall site speed and performance.

Disable WordPress Emojis

Disabling WordPress emojis is a simple yet effective way to improve your site’s performance. By removing the code for emojis, you eliminate the need for loading additional JavaScript and stylesheets, which can slow down your site. This optimization helps to reduce page load times, ensuring a faster, more efficient site.

While emojis can add a playful touch to your content, they are not always necessary. Removing these unnecessary resources can significantly enhance your site’s speed, providing a better user experience.

Dynamic Icons

Dynamic Icons are a fantastic feature for enhancing the performance of your Divi site. By loading only the icons used on a page, this feature significantly reduces the icon font size from 90kb to 6kb. This reduction in file size leads to faster load times and improved site performance.

The full icon set is only loaded when needed based on the modules and features used on the page. This selective loading ensures that your site remains efficient and responsive, even as you add new features and content.

Utilizing Dynamic Icons ensures your Divi site delivers a seamless user experience, free from unnecessary bloat.

Additional Built-In Performance Features

In addition to the primary optimization features, Divi offers several other built-in tools to enhance website performance. These features work together to ensure that your site operates at peak efficiency, providing a smooth and responsive user experience.

We’ll delve into three specific features in the subsections below: Load Dynamic In-Line Stylesheet, Limit Google Fonts Support for Legacy Browsers, and Defer jQuery and jQuery Migrate. Each feature plays a crucial role in optimizing your site’s performance.

Load Dynamic In-Line Stylesheet

Loading dynamic stylesheets inline is an effective way to minimize requests that could slow down page rendering. This feature removes render-blocking CSS requests, significantly improving your PageSpeed scores. By eliminating these requests, your site can load more efficiently, providing a better user experience.

To fully benefit from this optimization, enable other CSS-related features such as Critical CSS and Dynamic CSS. Together, these features ensure your site remains fast and responsive, even as new content and features are added.

Utilizing the Load Dynamic In-Line Stylesheet option ensures your Divi site delivers a seamless browsing experience, free from unnecessary delays.

Limit Google Fonts Support for Legacy Browsers

Limiting Google Fonts support for legacy browsers is an effective strategy for enhancing site performance. By excluding fonts for outdated browsers, this feature directly reduces the file sizes associated with Google Fonts. This reduction in size leads to improved load times and overall site performance.

While supporting older browsers can be beneficial for some users, it often comes at the cost of performance. By focusing on modern browsers, you can ensure that your site operates at peak efficiency, providing a better user experience.

Enabling this feature is a straightforward way to enhance your site’s performance, keeping it fast and responsive.

Defer jQuery and jQuery Migrate

Deferring jQuery and jQuery Migrate to the body of the page is a powerful optimization strategy. By moving these scripts to the body, you can eliminate render-blocking requests, significantly improving load times. This approach ensures that your site’s content is rendered more quickly, providing a better user experience.

However, it’s essential to be aware of potential compatibility issues. If a third-party plugin registers jQuery as a dependency, it may be necessary to move jQuery back to the head to avoid conflicts. Users should report any JavaScript issues to Elegant Themes and disable the feature temporarily if needed.

Deferring jQuery and jQuery Migrate ensures your Divi site operates efficiently, providing a seamless browsing experience.

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Using Divi with Third-Party Performance Plugins

While Divi’s built-in performance features are potent on their own, integrating third-party performance plugins can take your site’s speed to the next level. Caching and CDN solutions, for example, are highly advantageous when used alongside Divi. These tools can help further reduce load times and improve overall site efficiency.

WP Rocket is often recommended for WordPress sites using Divi due to its comprehensive caching and database optimization features. It can significantly improve Time to First Byte (TTFB), resulting in a quicker response from the server. Additionally, WP Rocket offers GZIP compression and can easily minify code, enhancing your site’s performance.

However, it’s crucial to test all third-party plugins thoroughly before integrating them with Divi. Conflicts can sometimes arise, particularly when plugins alter JavaScript loading methods. If you encounter any issues, it might be necessary to disable some of Divi’s built-in options and let the third-party plugin handle performance.

For smooth integration, perform before-and-after speed tests to evaluate the plugins’ impact. Use as few plugins as possible to avoid unnecessary bloat and keep your Divi site running efficiently.

Summary

The Divi Built-in Performance Options are a game changer! When properly implemented, you find a night and day difference in your overall site performance and an increase in your PageSpeed scores.

By leveraging these built-in performance options and integrating quality plugins, you can transform your Divi site into a high-speed powerhouse. Implement these optimizations today and enjoy faster load times, better user engagement, and improved search engine rankings.

If you want help optimizing your Divi website, or need help in general with your WordPress endeavors, contact Cobalt Graphics today for a free consult.

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