Why it matters how fast your website loads
Many people who look you up are on a phone, and many are not on fast Wi-Fi. A page that shows nothing for several seconds loses some of them before they read a word. Speed is the first thing a visitor feels.
What speed changes
- Visitors wait less than you think
- A blank screen gives no reason to stay. A page that shows its main content quickly keeps the visitor long enough to read it.
- Google measures it
- Core Web Vitals, part of Google’s page experience guidance, measure how fast the main content shows, how fast the page answers a tap, and whether the layout jumps.
- It costs your visitors money
- On a metered phone plan, every megabyte is paid for. A light page is a polite page.
- Speed comes from less
- The fastest pages do not use a clever trick. They load less: fewer scripts, smaller photos, and pages built ahead of time.
What the free check looks for
The free check reads your front page in a few seconds. These are the results that matter most here.
- The number of separate scripts the page loads before it settles.
- No viewport tag, which forces a phone to lay out a full desktop page.
- No dark mode, which matters less for speed but is the next thing a phone visitor notices.
Run the free check. The full review goes through every page for $9.
What you get, and what it costs
- You pay what you think the site is worth, from $100. It is the same site at every price.
- Every account, from the domain to the hosting, is in your name.
- It loads fast, works on every phone, and works with a screen reader and a keyboard.
- No trackers, and nothing about your customers is sold.
- If you want me to keep it safe and current, the care plan is $9 a month. It is optional.
Questions
- How do I test my own site?
- Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It is free, runs on Google’s computers, and tests a slow phone as well as a desktop.
- Are your speed numbers real?
- The home page shows Lighthouse results for this site, with the full reports published and a link to run the test yourself.
- Is a fast site more expensive?
- No. Every site I build is made to be fast, at every price.
See what your site needs
Start with the free check of the site you have. If you have no site yet, tell me about your business and I will reply.