Why Page Speed Matters More Than You Think
Your website's loading speed directly impacts your revenue, Google ranking, and customer trust. Here's the data and what to do about it.
Speed isn’t just a technical metric — it’s a business metric. Every second your website takes to load costs you customers, revenue, and search ranking.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
- 53% of mobile visitors leave if a page takes over 3 seconds to load (Google)
- A 1-second delay in page load time leads to a 7% reduction in conversions (Akamai)
- 70% of consumers say page speed impacts their willingness to buy (Unbounce)
For a small business, these aren’t abstract statistics. If your site gets 1,000 visitors a month and loads slowly, you could be losing 530 potential customers before they even see your content.
Google Cares About Speed
Since 2021, Google has used Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor. These three metrics measure real user experience:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — How fast the main content loads. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — How fast the page responds to clicks. Target: under 200ms.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — How much the page jumps around while loading. Target: under 0.1.
If your site fails these metrics, Google literally ranks you lower than faster competitors.
Common Speed Killers
Here’s what’s probably slowing down your small business website:
Unoptimized Images
That 5MB hero image from your phone? It should be 50KB in WebP format. Most sites I audit have images 10–100x larger than necessary.
Too Much JavaScript
WordPress plugins, analytics scripts, chat widgets, social media embeds — each one adds JavaScript that blocks page loading. The average website loads 500KB+ of JavaScript. My sites load under 50KB.
Cheap Hosting
That €3/month shared hosting plan? Your site shares a server with hundreds of other sites. Modern platforms like Cloudflare Pages and Vercel serve your site from edge servers worldwide — and they’re free.
Bloated Page Builders
Drag-and-drop page builders (Wix, Squarespace, WordPress + Elementor) generate massive, inefficient code. A simple business page can end up loading 2MB+ of unnecessary code.
What Good Speed Looks Like
Here’s what I aim for on every project:
| Metric | Target | Typical Business Site |
|---|---|---|
| Load time | < 1 second | 3–8 seconds |
| Page size | < 200 KB | 2–5 MB |
| Lighthouse score | 100/100 | 40–70 |
| JavaScript | < 50 KB | 500 KB+ |
The difference is dramatic — and your visitors feel it.
How to Check Your Speed
- Go to PageSpeed Insights
- Enter your website URL
- Look at both Mobile and Desktop scores
- Check Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS)
If your mobile score is below 80, your site is actively hurting your business.
The Fix
The solution isn’t more plugins or a faster hosting plan. It’s building with performance in mind from the start:
- Modern frameworks like Astro that ship zero JavaScript by default
- Optimized images served in WebP/AVIF with proper sizing
- Edge hosting on Cloudflare or Vercel
- Minimal code — only load what you actually need
A fast website isn’t a luxury — it’s the bare minimum your customers expect. If your current site is slow, it’s costing you money every single day.
Want to know how fast your site could be? Send me your URL and I’ll run a free speed audit.
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