A visitor looking up your opening hours on their phone will not wait long. If the page loads slowly, they go back to the search results and pick the next hair salon or installer. Speed is not a technical detail, it is the first impression.
How Google measures speed, with LCP, INP and CLS, is covered in our article on Core Web Vitals. This one is about practice: which parts make a website slow and what you can do about them.
Images: usually the biggest gain
On most slow websites, photos are the heaviest part. A photo from a phone or camera is often many times larger than a screen needs. The browser then downloads the whole file, even if it is shown as a small picture.
- Right size: do not supply a photo wider than it appears on screen, and give phones a smaller version than large screens.
- Modern format: WebP and AVIF are usually considerably smaller than JPEG or PNG at the same quality.
- Load later: photos at the bottom of the page only need to load when the visitor scrolls to them. The large photo at the top is the exception: it should arrive as quickly as possible.
- Fixed dimensions: give every image a width and height, so the text does not jump when the photo arrives.
A restaurant with a gallery of dishes or a hotel with room photos gains the most here. You can check it yourself: look in your admin area at how large the files you upload are.
Fonts and third-party scripts
Fonts
Every typeface and every variant (regular, bold, italic) is a separate file the browser has to fetch. Use one or two typefaces with only the variants you really need. Make sure the text is already visible in a standard font while your own font loads, so the visitor is not looking at an empty page.
Third-party scripts
A chat widget, an embedded map, a video, advertising pixels, a review block and analytics: each loads code from another party, with its own server and its own speed. Together they are often slower than the website itself.
- Make a list: note which external services run on your website and why.
- Remove what adds nothing: a pixel from a campaign that ended long ago can go.
- Load the rest later: a map or video can load only when someone clicks on it.
- Wait for consent: scripts that track or measure should load only after consent, as the cookie rules require.
Caching and distance to the visitor
With caching, the browser or a server in between keeps a copy of a file, so on the next visit it does not have to come from far away again. Logos, fonts and style files rarely change and can be kept for a long time. When such a file gets a new version, you give it a new name so the visitor still sees the new one straight away.
Distance matters too. Every request travels from the phone to the server and back. If that server is far away, each step takes extra time. Hosting that keeps copies of your website in several places, close to visitors, removes that delay. For a business with mainly Dutch customers this means at the very least: a server in or near the Netherlands.
Pre-built pages
Many websites only assemble a page at the moment someone requests it: the server pulls text from a database, combines parts and sends the result. That takes time on every visit, and the busier it gets, the longer it takes.
A pre-built page is ready before the visitor arrives. The server only has to send a file. That is faster, more stable under load and there is less code running that can fail. Interactive parts, such as a booking screen or an order button, are loaded only where they are needed.
How do you measure whether it improves?
Measure before you change anything. Test a few key pages (the homepage, a services page and the page where people book or order) with PageSpeed Insights, both on mobile and desktop. Then change one thing at a time and measure again. Also look at your own figures, such as the number of enquiries or orders, because that is what counts in the end.
How we do it
The websites we build consist of pre-built pages, with images in the right size and format, few external scripts and hosting close to the visitor. Through hosting and care we keep it that way: new photos and components go through the same checks, so the site has not quietly become slower after a year.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my website slower on my phone than on my computer?
Phones have less processing power and often a slower connection. Heavy photos and many scripts are felt there first. That is why you should always test the mobile version too.
What gives the most benefit if I have little time?
Usually the images: make them smaller, use a modern format and load photos at the bottom of the page later. After that, clear out third-party scripts.
Do I need a new website to become fast?
Not always. Images and scripts can often be improved on your current site. If every page is assembled again on every visit and it stays slow after those steps, a new setup is worth considering.