A. Smith Speed Optimizer

Description

A. Smith Speed Optimizer is a free WordPress speed optimization plugin that bundles the optimizations most sites actually need into one dashboard: lazy loading, HTML minification, JavaScript deferral, WordPress bloat removal, database cleanup, and a 0-100 performance score with a letter grade.

Built for site owners and agencies who want measurable speed improvements without juggling four separate plugins or hand-editing functions.php.

Key Features

• Lazy Loading – Automatically add loading="lazy" to images and iframes. Includes Intersection Observer for background images with data-bg attributes so non-image elements lazy load too.
• HTML Minification – Strip whitespace, HTML comments, and unnecessary characters from your HTML output. Preserves content inside <pre>, <script>, <textarea>, and <style> tags.
• JavaScript Deferral – Add the defer attribute to enqueued scripts to prevent render-blocking. jQuery is always excluded by default. Custom exclusions supported per-script.
• WordPress Bloat Removal – Remove unnecessary WordPress default features individually:
  • Emoji scripts and styles
  • oEmbed/Embeds
  • Query strings from static resources
  • Dashicons on frontend for non-admin users
  • XML-RPC and pingback
  • REST API link from head
  • Shortlinks
  • Windows Live Writer manifest
  • RSD link
  • RSS feed links (optional)
• Database Cleanup – Clean up post revisions, auto-drafts, trashed posts, expired transients, spam comments, and trashed comments with one click. Counts shown before deletion.
• Performance Scoring – Get a 0-100 performance score with letter grade (A-F) based on your active optimizations, asset counts, and bloat removal status.
• Email Reports – Scheduled email digests (daily/weekly/monthly) with your speed score, stats, and recommendations.
• Dashboard Widget – See your speed score at a glance on the WordPress admin dashboard.

How It Works

1. Install and activate the plugin.
2. Visit Speed Optimizer in your admin menu.
3. View your performance score and recommendations.
4. Toggle optimizations on/off from the dashboard.
5. Clean up database bloat with one click.
6. Configure settings for fine-grained control.

Privacy

Everything runs locally on your WordPress installation. No external server calls, no data sent to A. Smith Media, no account required.

Pro Features (Optional Add-On)

The free version is fully functional on its own. A Pro add-on is available separately at asmith.media/speed-optimizer with:

• Critical CSS generation for above-the-fold content
• Unused CSS removal to eliminate render-blocking styles
• Automatic WebP/AVIF image conversion
• Performance score history and trend charts
• CDN integration for static assets
• Font preloading and display optimization
• Full page caching with cache rules

Technical details