Manual Optimization With 10Web Speed Booster: Step-By-Step Guide

10Web Speed Booster is built to automatically optimize the PageSpeed Score of your website using best practices for CSS, JS, image, and font optimization. These optimizations aim to achieve the highest possible PageSpeed scores, which influence your SEO ranking.

The plugin requires minimal setup—just install it, and the optimization will begin automatically.

Sometimes, you might want to manually adjust the plugin’s settings to improve scores further or fix post-optimization issues. This article provides guidance on checking PageSpeed scores accurately, fine-tuning Booster settings, and resolving optimization-related problems.

Getting started: How to conduct the speed checks correctly

Once you’ve installed the plugin and connected your site to the 10Web dashboard (for non-10Web-hosted sites), begin by checking your scores compared to pre-optimization levels.

Before running the tests:

1. Purge all site caches and open the page in question at least once in an incognito browser to warm up the cache. This helps simulate a real visitor’s experience.
2. Use Google PageSpeed Insights at https://pagespeed.web.dev for the most reliable audits.

Keep in mind that Mobile PageSpeed scores are typically lower than desktop ones due to slower processors in mobile devices and the simulation of slower mobile networks by PageSpeed Insights.

Increase the speed further: how to do it?

If your score is below 90 on desktop or mobile, you may want to try extra adjustments for the best possible setup.

1. Use Extreme Optimization Mode: This is the most intensive optimization level and is recommended when aiming for top scores.

2. Disable Pre-loader: Pre-loaders, that are usually added by specialised plugins or via theme settings and come as spinning icons or graphics that appear while a page is loading, can actually slow down the perceived speed of your website. Disable pre-loaders to allow content to load without any visual delays.
3. Enable Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, which adds advanced Full Page caching, bot mitigation, WAF and more. Configuration steps are available in the related articles for both connected and 10Web-hosted sites.
4. Ensure the page is being optimized by Speed Booster using browser Dev tools:
   
   1. Open the site page in your browser.
   2. Right-click and select Inspect, or press Ctrl + Shift + I.
   3. Navigate to the Network tab and then the Doc sub-tab.
   4. Refresh the page.
   5. Find the main document (e.g., example.com) in the Name column and click it.
   6. Go to the Headers tab and locate the x-two-page-is-optimized: header.
      
      1 means the page is optimized.
      0 means it’s not optimized.
   7. If the value is 0, the nearby x-two-optimize-reason: header will show which cookie, plugin, or rule is preventing optimization.

In-Depth analytics and optimization with the PageSpeed insights opportunities section

The Opportunities section in Google PageSpeed Insights under this link is the section where Google suggests specific steps you can make to improve your page’s load performance. Prudent and informed use of this tab could help you greatly in optimizing your site in combination with Speed Booster’s standard kit. To find the Opportunities section: 

1. Go to PageSpeed Insights
2. Enter your site URL and hit Analyze
3. Scroll down to the "Opportunities" section — it's right under the performance score and Core Web Vitals summary

Here are some key audits you may like to pay attention to:

Reduce server response time (TTFB)

This metric measures the response time of your server and may indicate it’s taking too long to respond. Cloudflare CDN’s full-page cache can mitigate this, as the global CDN serves as a reverse proxy between your visitors and your origin server. 

So, if you are facing poor numbers in this audit, make sure Cloudflare CDN is active with Full Page cache option enabled. 

Enable text compression 

If your site is hosted with 10Web, you will not see this audit, as we have brotli compression enabled by default on our hosting. 

If your website is hosted outside of 10Web, please contact your hosting provider to activate text compression on your server, selecting from options such as gzip, deflate, or brotli. 

Serve images in next-gen formats 

This opportunity suggests using formats like WebP or AVIF instead of JPEG/PNG — they’re smaller and load faster.

• For websites hosted with 10Web, please contact 10Web customer care team, and we will enable the option for you.  
• If your website is not hosted with 10Web, please refer to the “WebP not activating automatically” section from the following guide for further instructions.

Eliminate render-blocking resources

Check the files that are pointed out in the two sections below. In case those are JS files, refer to the section Reduce unused JavaScript. In case those are CSS files, refer to the section Reduce unused CSS.

Reduce unused JavaScript

Some JS files are loaded but not actually used - here’s what can be done in the Speed Booster settings to address that:

• Make sure the Delay JS option is enabled. 
• Check the source of the JS files and make sure they are internal files and not loading from an external source. External sources may sometimes not be delayed by 10Web Booster. 
• In case you have excluded any JS files or plugins / themes from the JS Delay section of your 10Web Dashboard, they may appear in this section. 

Reduce unused CSS

Unused styles add weight; trimming them down reduces page load time. Please, check the source of the CSS files and make sure they are internal files and not loading from an external source. After, please, follow these steps:

• Ensure that the options for Aggregate CSS and Critical CSS are turned on. 
• Check your website's source code for the existence of the class two_critical_css, as it signifies the presence of Critical CSS. 
• If you don't find it, switch the mode from Strong to Extreme and back again. This action triggers the regeneration process and helps ensure that Critical CSS is properly applied to enhance your website's performance.

Minify CSS

Make sure the Minify CSS option from the Speed Booster Settings Tab of your 10Web Dashboard is enabled. 

Defer offscreen images

The website images should be loaded only when the users enter the viewport. This can be achieved using lazy loading. To enable Lazy Load from the Speed Booster settings:

• Enter the Settings tab
• Scroll all the way down until you get to the Lazy Load section
• Ensure that Lazy Load for Images and Lazy Load for background images are on

Properly size images

Properly size images flags images that are larger in resolution than needed for how they’re displayed on the page.

Example: You have a 2000×1500px image showing in a 400×300px container — that’s overkill. It wastes bandwidth and slows down loading.

To address this:

1. Resize images to fit display dimensions: Use image editing tools (Photoshop, Figma, GIMP, or online tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh) to downscale images. Match the image dimensions to the largest display size needed (e.g., 800px wide for a blog post, not 3000px).
2. Use lazy loading  (also flagged separately): see the Defer Offscreen Images section above.
3. Use next-gen formats (also flagged separately): see the Serve images in next-gen formats section above.

Use video formats for animated content

Avoid using big GIFs for animated content. Instead, go for MPEG4 or WebM videos for animations and PNG or WebP for still images. This helps reduce the amount of data your website uses.

Manual optimization by 10Web

The 10Web Optimization Team offers a paid Manual Optimization Service:

• $50 to optimize the homepage.
• $30 for each additional page.
• Delivery time: up to 3 business days.

To request paid optimization, feel free to contact 10Web Customer Care Team.