Slow websites lose visitors, sales and Google rankings. Research consistently shows that people leave pages that take too long to load, and Google uses page experience as one of its signals. Improving your website speed is one of the most effective upgrades you can make.
How to Check Your Website Speed
Use free tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights and the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console. Focus on the mobile results – that is what most visitors and Google see. The key measurements are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – how fast the main content appears (aim for under 2.5 seconds).
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) – how quickly the page reacts to taps and clicks (aim for under 200 ms).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – whether content jumps while loading (aim for under 0.1).
10 Ways to Improve Website Speed
- Compress images and use modern formats such as WebP.
- Resize images to the size they are shown – no 4000-pixel photos in small boxes.
- Lazy-load images below the first screen.
- Remove unused plugins and scripts.
- Limit third-party widgets such as chat, sliders and social feeds.
- Use caching so pages are not rebuilt for every visitor.
- Choose good hosting with enough resources and a server close to your visitors.
- Use a CDN for visitors in other countries.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript and load scripts only where needed.
- Keep software updated – newer versions are often faster and more secure.
Speed Is Ongoing Work
New images, plugins and content can slow a fast website down again over time. Check your website speed every month and fix problems early.
Let Us Make Your Website Faster
Our website maintenance plans include speed checks and optimisation, and our hosting packages give your website a fast base. Need help now? Contact us for a free website speed review.