After dealing with Magento 2 Ecommerce engine and wasted around 800 dev hours (with average $100 per hour cost is up to $80000), I come up with clear idea of how page speed optimization should actually be done. And honestly, it’s the opposite of what most agencies and SEO pros do.

People jump straight into technical optimization — touching templates, scripts, layout files, endless audits, all that stuff. But if your server tier is too weak and your CDN is trash, you’re basically fighting physics. No developer can fix physics with CSS and JavaScript tweaks, only temporary until next changes in code, which will crash all your last gains in Core Web Vitals.

Step should be simple and clear:

1. Upgrade your server tier first.
More CPU, more RAM, better PHP workers, faster disk.
This alone can drop your TTFB, LCP and initial server response time way faster than any dev sprint.

2. Only after that, start technical optimization.
Now your dev hours actually matter, because they’re not fighting a slow machine.
You don’t need 800 hours to fix LCP — sometimes 20–40 hours is enough when the infrastructure is not choking the app.

And yeah, in many cases you might realize you don’t need a giant tech budget at all. Advanced Hosting + CDN + a few core fixes will solve most of the pain:

• – high TTFB
  • – slow first byte
    • – weak Initial Server Response Time
      • – bad LCP caused by backend delays

This is something nobody teaches.
But after seeing it the hard way, I’m convinced:
Fix the foundation first. Then optimize. Then scale.