This post was last updated on 2/15/2019
Even though Avada (affiliate link) is a multi-purpose WordPress theme packed with a lot of features, it has become pretty well optimized over the years.
If your WordPress website runs on a good hosting, and you also optimize other important areas, then the Avada theme won’t prevent your website from having a good loading time.
In this post, I’ll only show how to speed up the Avada WordPress theme by tweaking its settings.
I won’t go into a full WordPress website speed optimization, but here are some posts that will help you out on that manner:
- How to optimize images for WordPress;
- How to optimize images using GIMP;
- Why is WordPress slow;
- 5 reasons why your WordPress website is slow;
- WP Rocket caching plugin review.
How to speed up the Avada WordPress theme
Below are the theme settings that you need to tweak to improve Avada’s performance, therefore speed.
Basically, you’ll just have to disable a bunch of stuff.
Disable the Avada Fusion Builder Elements that you don’t use
Head to Fusion Builder -> Settings and disable all the features that you don’t use, so that Avada won’t unnecessary load them.
You can also completely disable the Fusion Builder on certain posts types, such as Posts, Pages, Portfolio, and so on.
So, if you know for a fact that you won’t use any Fusion Builder elements on your products pages, for example, you should disable it there.
Disable the Avada sliders
I’m not really a fan of sliders and carousels, and if you don’t use them as well, then disable them.
Go to Avada -> Theme Options -> Advanced -> Theme Features and disable the Elastic Slider and Fusion Slider.
Since you’re there and we’re talking about sliders, scroll up a bit and disable the Avada Styles For Revolution Slider.
Disable Avada CSS animations on mobiles
If you’re using CSS animations, it’s best if you’d disable them on mobile devices.
Some animations don’t even work properly on mobiles anyway, such as the ones that are based on hovering.
So, head to Avada -> Theme Options -> Advanced -> Theme Features and turn off CSS Animations on Mobiles.
If you don’t use CSS animations at all, then you can disable them altogether, even though, usually, they shouldn’t impact the speed if done properly, from what I understand.
Disable Avada scripts
Go to Avada -> Theme Options -> Advanced -> Theme Features and disable the scripts for the features that you don’t use.
APIs usually don’t go along well with speed, so the fewer you have, the better.
If you don’t use Vimeo and/or YouTube videos, disable their API scripts. I don’t use Vimeo videos, so I only disabled the API script for Vimeo.
If you don’t implement a Google map on your site, disable that as well.
ToTop scripts are responsible for that arrow that appears on the bottom-right corner of the page or post, which the user can click to go to the top quickly.
If your pages/posts are not long, you should disable them. The mobile one is currently disabled by default.
I keep the script on for desktops/laptops, but I keep it disabled for mobiles, especially because space is limited there and that arrow appears over the content.
Host Google fonts locally
Avada implemented this as a GDPR feature, but it’s also useful to optimize the loading time as well.
Go to Avada -> Theme Options -> Privacy and set Google Fonts Mode to Local.
The fonts will be downloaded on your server instead of loading externally from Google.
Note that, as Diana pointed out in the comments, this can also have the opposite effect, depending on what fonts you use, how many, and how many styles.
You can end up with large files, which might affect your real speed, even if the speed tools will show a better grade and they won’t “whine” about another external script.
Perform some A/B testing to see how it goes.
Activate lazy loading for images
In Avada 5.8, a lazy loading feature was introduced.
Go to Avada > Theme Options > Performance > Performance > Enable Lazy Loading.
If you have a Lazy Loading plugin, I recommend disabling it and see if the feature from Avada behaves nicely and you’re satisfied with it. If you are, delete the plugin and use Avada’s feature.
The fewer plugins you have, the better!
Disable the WordPress emoji script
This option was added in 5.8.1, and you can find it in the same place as Lazy Loading, in Avada > Theme Options > Performance > Performance > Emojis script.
If you don’t use emojis, disable them. The fewer scripts you have running, the better!
Don’t use the “Related Posts” feature
“Related posts” are known to impact a WordPress site’s speed.
So, to further speed up the Avada WordPress theme, I recommend disabling the Related Posts feature in Avada -> Theme Options -> Blog -> Blog Single Post.
Instead, you should use internal linking and/or manually mention related posts throughout your articles.
You’ll notice that I have some “related posts” boxes inside the post, which I’ve manually created and manually placed.
Here’s how you can create your own “related “posts” boxes using CSS.
Enable Load Media-Queries Files Asynchronously
We’ve kept disabling theme features so far. Now, it’s time to enable something. :D
Loading media-queries files asynchronously is another feature that can speed up the Avada WordPress theme.
So, go to Avada -> Theme Options -> Performance -> Dynamic CSS & JS and turn on Load Media-Queries Files Asynchronously.
The other settings, CSS Compiling Method (Database) and Enable JS Compiler, should be enabled by default in Dynamic CSS & JS. If they are not, enable them.
NOTE: JS Compiler should only be enabled if your server is still using HTTP/1 instead of HTTP/2. Even if you enable it, if Avada detects HTTP/2, it will disable it by default!
That’s a wrap
I hope that you found the post useful and you’ve managed to speed up your Avada WordPress theme!
Keep in mind that the theme is only a part of WordPress speed optimization!
Don’t forget to share the post to help out others!
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Hey Thanks for a great article. I tried using the Avada Host fonts locally option but it ended up serving more than 1.5mb of font files instead of the 125kb that it was previously requesting! Did you face this issue?
Hello! I’m glad you liked the post!
I don’t host fonts locally, but the files can be large, yes. It depends on how many you use, their type, compression, styles (bold, normal, extra-bold, etc.).
As a tip theme features is under theme options > advanced > theme features – just took me a while to find as I am not that familiar with the menu. Going to try out all of the above, hopefully with some mobile results (score = 19 atm on page speed insights….).
It should definitely improve the speed.
And you’re right! I forgot to add the “Advanced” part. Thanks for the heads-up! I’ll update the post right away.
I’d wasted some time trying to find these settings to improve performance for Avada, and so glad I found this article! Very well written and very helpful. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! I’m very glad that you found the guide useful!
Thanks for the great post. It would be useful to notice in your article, what Avada settings are incompatible or undesirable when you using http/2. For Example “Enable Load Media-Queries Files Asynchronously” because hppt/2 also offers asynchronous transfer.
I think this applies to the JS Compiler, which is disabled by default by Avada (even if you enable it) if it detects HTTP/2. I’ll mention this in the post. Thanks!
Just FYI when I turned on Hosting fonts locally my website slowed down significantly after testing in PageSpeed Insights, just an FYI for anyone else who may experience this issue as well.
Yep, depending on the font and how many you use, that could happen. If you use several fonts with several styles, it can result in large file sizes. Personally, I use Google Fonts.
Thanks for pointing this out! I’ve updated the post as well.
Cheers for this – I think you saved me from recreating the site with a different theme!
Changing the theme can be a pain, especially if you’ve used Avada’s page builder and shortcodes to create a lot of pages and posts. But, luckily, even though it’s not the fastest theme out there – being multipurpose and all – it can still provide good performance with the proper optimization.
Thanks a lot. The tips are super helpful.
You’re welcome! I’m glad you found them helpful.
Hi Radu,
Well done. I think this is the most comprehensive guide for optimising Avada Theme Fusion. I definitely learned some new things from reading your article. Kudos!
I’ll start sharing the link on the Theme Fusion community forum for sure.
One thing I found pretty annoying is not being able to unload certain JavaScript for specific pages. I wrote custom PHP and promising plugin to target unloading ThemePunch (Revolution Slider) JavaScript in particular. With no luck unfortunately.
But, on a good note–at least Contact 7 Form plays nice and allows you to unload its JS using the recommended method. Works like a charm. Here’s my code in case you want to share.
/*** Don't load Contact Form 7 plugin
* if the page doesn't need them.
*/
add_action( 'wp_print_scripts', 'my_deregister_javascript', 100 );
function my_deregister_javascript() {
if ( !is_page(PUTYOURCONTACTPAGEIDHERE) ) {
wp_deregister_script( 'contact-form-7' );
wp_dequeue_script( 'contact-form-7' );
wp_deregister_script( 'avada-contact-form-7' );
wp_dequeue_script( 'avada-contact-form-7' );
}
}
Hello!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
And thanks for the code. It will come in handy for those using Contact Form 7. Currently, I’m using Avada’s default contact form. And for some time now, I’ve started recommending WPForms instead of Contact Form 7 for that reason – it adds scripts on every page.
Interesting article as well as the code. About the code, if we have a site with several contact pages, according to the languages, how do we modify the code so that it takes into consideration the different contact pages? Thank you in advance for your help !
Good article Radu. I’ve been doing most of this already, but you’ve opened up another line of enquiry for me. I’d recommend Formidable Pro for forms – been using them to create everything from simple contact to full-featured CRM.
Check my site for more info.
https://jrdesign.com.au.Thanks! That’s pretty much what you can do to speed up Avada itself, without going through its code.
To be honest, I never heard of Formidable Forms until now. Looks like they have some cool features for people who need advanced forms.
Hi Radu,
Great article! I was trying to optimize my website and have finally found the best combination! W3 Total Cache + Autoptimize + These Avada Performance settings! It worked great for me. I’ll, however, recommend you host the fonts on CDN and then use Autoptimize to combine and serve them asynchronously!
Hi
In my website if I enable Load Media-Queries Files Asynchronously, It will load always mobile version even if I connected from my desktop computer.