A slow website costs you visitors, enquiries and search visibility. Most visitors leave if a page takes too long to load, especially on mobile connections. The good news is that most speed problems come from a small number of causes that can be fixed.
How to measure your speed
Run your page through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It reports Core Web Vitals, which measure how quickly the main content loads (Largest Contentful Paint), how quickly the page responds to input (Interaction to Next Paint) and how stable the layout is (Cumulative Layout Shift). Test both mobile and desktop, and test your most important pages, not just the homepage.
Common causes and fixes
1. Large, uncompressed images
Photos straight from a camera can be several megabytes. Resize images to the size they are displayed at, compress them and use modern formats such as WebP. Load images lower on the page lazily.
2. Slow hosting
If your server takes a long time to respond, nothing else will make the site feel fast. Choose reliable hosting, use server-level caching and consider a content delivery network (CDN) if you serve visitors in several countries.
3. No caching
Without caching, WordPress builds each page from scratch on every visit. A caching plugin or a server cache, such as LiteSpeed Cache on LiteSpeed hosting, stores ready-made pages and delivers them much faster.
4. Too many plugins and scripts
Every plugin can add scripts and styles. Remove plugins you do not use, replace several plugins that do similar jobs with one, and limit third-party scripts such as chat widgets, trackers and embedded feeds.
5. Heavy page builders and themes
Some themes and builders load a lot of code on every page. A lean, well-built theme with only the features you need loads faster.
6. Unoptimised fonts
Limit the number of font families and weights, and make sure text stays visible while fonts load.
7. Large videos
Do not autoplay large video files on the homepage. Use a poster image, load the video only when the visitor presses play and compress the file.
8. Layout shifts
Set width and height on images, video and ads so the page does not jump while it loads.
A simple order of work
- Fix image sizes and formats.
- Turn on caching.
- Remove unnecessary plugins and scripts.
- Check hosting response time.
- Re-test and repeat.
Speed and SEO
Page experience is one of many signals Google uses, and speed strongly affects how visitors behave once they arrive. Fast sites keep people reading and convert more of them. Every website we build is optimised for speed, and our SEO service includes technical performance fixes. If your site feels slow, contact us and we will review it.
