Website performance is more important than ever as users expect a fast loading experience, and search engines like Google consider page speed in their rankings. If your website was built with traditional WordPress page builders like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, or Visual Composer, you might notice that it feels sluggish or difficult to optimize for performance as your site grows or you add functionality. The good news is that transitioning to a modern, block-based builder can significantly improve your site’s speed and user experience right away while still being easy to use and build. Block-based builders come in two flavors, hybrid and full site editing (FSE) themes which you can explore in this blog post. For today’s post though, we are going to focus on Kadence, a specific hybrid block-based theme and block page builder that gives you the best of both worlds: a fast loading, block-based workflow combined with the easy-to-use, tried and true Customizer and widget-based theme options panel.

The Challenge with Traditional Builders

While popular page builders such as Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and Visual Composer have served an important role in making WordPress easier to use over the years and making it truly easy for non-developers to build a complex web design within WordPress, they also have their downsides. The primary downsides include the inherent performance drag and stability concerns due to the way they add layers of code and functionality.

These common issues include:

1. Excessive Code Bloat: Traditional page builders rely on proprietary drag-and-drop functionality that sites on top of WordPress, which makes website creation extremely easier for beginners to use. However, to support their visual builders, they often inject large amounts of unnecessary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into each page. This code bloat not only slows down your website but also makes it more difficult to optimize on the frontend. On top of it, these builders inject themselves into the WordPress editor or completely replace it and that can cause even more unnecessary code.
2. Rendering Delays: Such builders often load various assets from external libraries, such as CSS stylesheets, JavaScript files, and font resources since they are not using as much of the WordPress core experience and need various other external resources to provide their styling and functionality. These external files add to the overall load time of your website, causing a delay in rendering content to your visitors.
3. Update Headaches: As these builders have so much code and have to use various workarounds and have so many options, they are much more likely to break from WordPress core, other plugins or even their own updates. This is especially true when third party plugins are added onto of the page builder to add even more options and modules. For example, Elementor add-ons can often break itself if Elementor is not updated first and other third party plugins can conflict with other third party plugins. This makes running updates much more stressful and likely to break.
4. Difficult to Scale: As your website grows in complexity, it can become harder to maintain performance and consistency with traditional page builders due to their inherent bloat. Sites built with these builders are often difficult to scale in terms of speed and updates without undergoing significant custom speed optimization and update work.

Enter Kadence, A Hybrid Block-Based Builder

Block-based builders like Kadence offer a fresh approach that aligns with the direction WordPress has been heading with the introduction of the Gutenberg visual block content editor. Instead of relying on heavy, code-laden structures, block builders provide lean, modular components called blocks that are designed to be fast, flexible, and customizable without adding extra weight to your pages. Kadence combines the block-based approach with a classic theme panel for managing global and high-level website customizations in a familiar way, hence why it is considered a hybrid theme and block-based framework. It uses future-forward blocks, yet relied on the classic WordPress way of managing theme and global website options.

Using Kadence has many improvements and advantages including:

1. Significant Speed Improvements: Kadence is particularly known for being incredibly lightweight. It reduces code bloat by using optimized, minimal resources. Unlike older builders that load unnecessary code across all pages, it only loads the CSS and JavaScript that’s necessary for each block you use. This targeted loading drastically reduces page size and improves performance. Additional speed improvements:
   • Minimal Asset Loading: Kadence only loads the assets (CSS/JS) that are needed for specific blocks, ensuring that the rest of the page remains lightweight.
   • Faster Time to First Byte (TTFB): By reducing the size of each page and removing excessive code bloat, it ensures a faster server response time.
   • Improved Core Web Vitals: Google’s Core Web Vitals places heavy importance on load speed, interactivity, and visual stability. A site built with Kadence naturally scores better in these areas due to its efficient code structure.
2. Improved Accessibility Compliance: Kadence is built with online accessibility in mind, helping ensure that your site meets ADA compliance standards and improving the entire user experience. In a independent test ran by EqualizeDigital, an online accessibility authority, Kadence ranked highest among the traditional and block-based builders tested. You can read more on this link.
3. Better SEO Performance: Google considers site speed a search ranking factor, at least to some extent. By building or rebuilding your site with Kadence, you may see an improvement in search engine rankings as your page load times decrease. Additionally, it follows best practices for schema markup, structured data, and mobile-first indexing, giving your site a further SEO advantage.
4. Mobile-Friendly by Design: Kadence is designed with mobile responsiveness as a priority, meaning your website will look good on any device without the need for additional tweaking. This mobile-first approach ensures that your content remains legible and well-structured, enhancing the user experience for mobile visitors. It also includees:
   • Responsive Block System: Kadence blocks automatically adapt to different screen sizes, ensuring a consistent and smooth experience for mobile and desktop users alike.
   • Optimized Images for Mobile: Kadence allows you to control how images are displayed on mobile devices, serving the right image size to the right device to optimize performance.
5. Dynamic Content Control: Kadence lets you control content display conditions without adding excess code or third-party plugins. This means you can show personalized content based on user roles, categories, or other conditions, all without impacting performance or using another plugin.
6. Classic Theme Options: As mentioned previously, you can use the native WordPress customizer for full control over your site’s design, eliminating the need for bulky third-party builders. It offers a wide range of customization options, from typography and color schemes to advanced header and footer customization, all while maintaining a lightweight framework using the familiar classic, WordPress Customizer panel rather than the WordPress full site editing experiencing which can be overwhelming at times.
7. Improved Workflow and Ease of Use: With block-based building, you can streamline your workflow by working directly in the WordPress editor. Kadence blocks are intuitive and easy to use, meaning you can create complex page layouts without needing to rely on third-party templates or modules. The interface is also faster, allowing for quicker page creation and editing. It improves this through:
   • No Shortcodes: Older builders often rely on shortcodes, which can be difficult to manage and make editing a hassle. Kadence, on the other hand, uses native blocks, which makes editing straightforward and doesn’t leave behind messy shortcodes if you ever switch themes or builders.
   • Faster Development Time: With Kadence’s easy-to-use block system, building pages is faster and more intuitive, allowing you to save time and focus on content.
8. Fewer Plugin Dependencies: Many page builders require extra plugins to add functionality. Kadence offers a wide range of features natively, reducing the number of plugins you need to install.
9. Better Security: Less bloat and fewer plugins mean fewer vulnerabilities. By rebuilding with Kadence, you reduce potential security risks that come from using outdated or unsupported plugins.
10. Future-Proof Your Website: WordPress is moving towards a more block-oriented future, and Kadence is aligned with this trend. By building or migrating your site to a block-based builder, you ensure that it remains compatible with future WordPress updates and innovations. This future-proofing means fewer chances of breaking your site during updates and fewer headaches for you in the long run.

How Inspry Can Handle Your WordPress Build

At Inspry, we specialize in building high-performance, user-friendly WordPress websites. If you’re looking to build or rebuild your site from a traditional page builder to a block-based builder like Kadence, our team can help make the transition smooth and reliable. We’ll start by thoroughly assessing your current site, mapping out the content and design, and creating a custom plan to build your site with performance and usability in mind.

Our experienced developers will handle every aspect of the rebuild, ensuring:

• A clean and optimized site with minimal code bloat.
• Improved speed and performance, both for desktop and mobile users.
• Better SEO scores with enhanced responsiveness and Core Web Vitals.
• Full integration of your existing content, preserving the structure and functionality of your current site while improving its efficiency.
• Ongoing support to ensure your new Kadence-built website remains updated, secure, and aligned with WordPress best practices.
• Training on using Kadence and block-based workflows as needed.

If you’re ready to take the next step and dramatically improve your website’s performance, contact us today for a free consultation. Our team at Inspry is here to help you make the switch to blocks and take your website to the next level!​