You've probably heard that a fast website is important. But do you know why?
Here's what happens when your site loads slowly: Many mobile visitors leave before the page even finishes loading. Google takes page speed into account when it ranks pages. Your bounce rate skyrockets because people assume your business is unprofessional.
Every extra second of load time costs you leads. And money.
The Three Things Killing Your Speed
Massive, unoptimized images are one of the most common culprits. You uploaded a 5MB photo straight from your phone to your website. That photo should be 200KB maximum.
Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to compress images before uploading. Aim for under 200KB per image without losing visible quality. This one step often makes a big difference to load time.
Every chat widget, analytics tool, social feed, and plugin adds weight to your site. Most of them you don't even use. Audit your plugins. Remove anything you haven't used in 30 days. Keep only what actually drives business results.
If your website loads from scratch every single time someone visits, it's going to be slow. Caching stores a version of your site so it loads instantly for repeat visitors. On WordPress, turn it on through your host or a plugin like WP Rocket. Wix handles caching for you automatically.
How to Test Your Site Speed
Go to PageSpeed Insights by Google. Enter your URL. Wait for the results. You'll get a score out of 100:
- 90-100: Excellent
- 50-89: Needs work
- 0-49: Critical problem
Focus on the mobile score. Many of your visitors are on phones, and Google looks at the mobile version of your site when it ranks you.
A good target is Google's own: the main content of the page should show up within 2.5 seconds. PageSpeed Insights reports this as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which means how long the biggest thing on the screen takes to appear. If you're under 2.5 seconds, you're in good shape.
The Business Impact
Here's what happens when you fix your site speed:
Before: Visitors give up while the page loads, and only a few stick around long enough to become leads. After: More visitors stay, look around, and get in touch.
That's more leads from the same traffic. Same marketing budget. Same website. Just faster.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Video backgrounds look cool. They're also huge files that destroy your load time. Use a high-quality static image with a subtle animation overlay instead.
YouTube and Vimeo exist for a reason. Never upload video files directly to your website. It's a speed killer.
Most of your traffic is mobile. If your desktop site is fast but mobile is slow, you're losing a big share of your potential customers.
Speed optimization isn't a one-time fix. It's ongoing maintenance. As you add content, images, and features, your site will naturally slow down. Regular check-ins keep it running smoothly.
Not sure where to start? Book a free 15–30 minute call and I'll look at your site's speed with you.
