Processes Home

Optimization Yes-No Checklist 

Published On: August 24, 2023/Last Updated June 10, 2024

Follow the steps below to ensure the site has been fully optimized. 

Step 1 – Are all the following plugins installed and active? 

  • WP Rocket 
  • Smush Pro 
  • WPMU Dev (If this does not show on the WP Plugins page check the GD Core Plugins page)

No

Send back to vendor to ensure all of these plugins are installed and active according to this guide: https://styleguide.wdsgallery.com/website-optimization/

Yes

Move on to the next step. 

Step 2 – Are all WP Rocket and Smush Pro settings entered correctly? 

(These should all be completed by automation, but they should be checked in case automation fails) 

WP Rocket Settings: 

Cache 

Settings > WP Rocket > Cache: 

  • Is Enable caching for mobile devices the only item checked? 
  • Is the Cache Lifespan set to 10 hours? 
File Optimization  

Settings > WP Rocket > File Optimization: 

  • Under JavaScript Files are “Minify JavaScript Files”, “Load JavaScript deferred”, and “Delay JavaScript execution” the only options checked?
Media  

Settings > WP Rocket > Media: 

  • Under Image Dimensions is “Add missing image dimensions” checked?
Preload  

Settings > WP Rocket > Preload: 

  • Are “Activate Preloading” and “Enable link preloading” the only items checked here? 
Database 

Settings > WP Rocket > Database: 

  • Under Post Cleanup are “Revisions”, “Auto Drafts”, and “Trashed Posts” checked? 
  • Under the Comments Cleanup section are “Spam Comments” and “Trashed Comments” checked? 
  • Under Database Cleanup is “Optimize Tables” checked? 
  • All other options should be unchecked. 

Smush Pro Settings:

Bulk Smush 

Smush Pro > Bulk Smush: 

  • Is the Smush Mode set to “Ultra”? 
  • Under Image Sizes is “All” checked?  
  • Is “Automatically compress my images on upload” enabled? 
  • Is “Strip my image metadata” enabled? 
  • Is “Image Resizing” enabled and set to 1920 X 1080? 
  • Is “Compress original images” enabled? 
  • Is “Auto-convert PNGs to JPEGs (lossy)” enabled? 

If any of the above smush options are missing, the vendor will need to refresh the WPMUDEV token: https://styleguide.wdsgallery.com/website-optimization/

Lazy Load 

Smush Pro > Lazy Load:

  • Under Media types, are all of the following checked? 
    • .jpeg 
    • .png 
    • .webp 
    • .gif 
    • .svg 
    • iframe 
  • Under Include/Exclude are all of the following checked? 
    • Frontpage 
    • Blog 
    • Pages 
    • Posts 
    • Archives 
    • Categories 
    • Tags 
    • Templates 
  • Under scripts is header active? 
Local WebP 

Smush Pro > Local WebP: 

  • This page should either show a finish setup notice or a status that says “WebP conversion is active and working well.”  

No 

Return site to builder to enable the proper plugin settings. 

Yes 

Move on to the next step. 

Step 3 – Has Bulk Smush been run and all images have been smushed? 

No

All images must be smushed. If any images fail to be smushed through the bulk smush, the builder should manually optimize these images 

Yes

Great, No further action is needed.