Page speed in plain English
Half of visitors leave a page that takes more than three seconds to load on a phone. Speed is not a technical nicety. It is the difference between an enquiry and a bounce.
The usual culprits
- Huge photos. A single 6 MB image from a phone camera, uploaded as-is, is the most common problem we see.
- Too many plugins and scripts. Chat widgets, trackers, fonts and sliders each add weight.
- Cheap shared hosting. Fine for a hobby, slow under any load.
- No caching. The server rebuilds the page for every visitor instead of serving a ready copy.
How to measure
Run the home page through Google's PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile score. Under 50 is a problem. Over 90 is where we aim.
What we do
Images are compressed automatically on upload, pages are served from a content delivery network close to the visitor, and we keep third-party scripts to the ones that earn their place. Speed is checked before launch and monitored after.
Want a hand with this?
Send a few lines and you get a plain answer within two working days.
More from the blog
Why a managed website beats a one-off build for most small businesses
A website is not a purchase, it is a running service. Here is what goes wrong with the one-off model and why paying monthly usually works out better.
Editing your own website without breaking it
Every site we build comes with a simple editor. Here is what you can safely change yourself, what to leave to us, and a few habits that keep things tidy.