Tech made clear · 5 November 2026 · 5 min read
Slow website: why every second costs customers and how to fix it
Load time decides whether visitors stay and how Google rates your page. Core Web Vitals explained plainly, the most common slowdowns and what really helps.
Nobody likes waiting. Especially on a phone, on the move and with a weak connection, visitors leave if a page doesn't show something quickly. And Google measures load time and factors it in.
The three values Google looks at
- 01
LCP: how fast does the main content appear?
The largest visible element, like the hero image, should be there within 2.5 seconds.
- 02
INP: how fast does the page respond?
After a tap or click the page should respond in under 200 milliseconds.
- 03
CLS: does the page jump?
Content shouldn't shift while loading, so you don't tap the wrong thing.
The most common slowdowns
- Huge, uncompressed images straight from the camera
- Lots of plugins and scripts loaded on every page
- Fonts and services from third-party servers
- Cheap hosting that slows down under load
- Sliders and videos at the top blocking everything else
What really helps
- Modern image formats (WebP, AVIF) sized for each device
- Only load what each page needs
- Serve fonts yourself
- Pre-render content and deliver it over a fast network
- Measure regularly, e.g. with PageSpeed Insights
This website is measured on every change: on desktop it scores about 97 to 99 out of 100 in Lighthouse, on mobile with a throttled connection around 87, despite animations and live demos.
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