Website Speed and Core Web Vitals: A Plain Guide for Small Businesses

A slow website costs you enquiries. Visitors, particularly on phones, don't wait around. Google also uses page experience, including speed, as one of many signals when ranking pages. You don't need to be technical to understand the basics or to make real improvements.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to describe how a page feels to use:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content appears. Google's guidance treats 2.5 seconds or less as good.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Around 200 milliseconds or less is considered good.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the page jumps around as it loads. A score of 0.1 or less is considered good.

These thresholds can change, so check Google's current guidance. The idea behind them is simple: the page should appear quickly, respond quickly and stay still.

How to test your site

• PageSpeed Insights is free from Google. Enter a page address and it shows real-world data (if enough people visit) and lab test results with suggestions.
• Search Console has a Core Web Vitals report that groups your pages as good, needs improvement or poor.
• Your own phone. Open your site over mobile data. If it feels slow to you, it feels slow to customers.

Test your homepage, your main service pages and your contact page, since those matter most.

The biggest fixes, in order

1. Shrink your images

Large images are the most common cause of slow pages. Compress them, use modern formats such as WebP or AVIF where supported, and size them to how they're displayed. Don't upload a 5MB photo to show it at 400 pixels wide.

2. Lazy-load images below the fold

Load only what's visible first. Images further down the page can load as people scroll.

3. Remove what you don't use

Every plugin, tracking script, chat widget and font adds weight. Audit them and remove the ones that don't earn their place.

4. Limit fonts

Use as few font files as possible, and make sure text shows while they load.

5. Use good hosting and caching

Cheap, crowded hosting can slow everything down. Good hosting, a content delivery network and caching help pages load faster for visitors in different places.

6. Reserve space for images and adverts

Setting dimensions in advance stops content from jumping as things load, which improves CLS.

7. Keep scripts light

Defer anything that isn't needed straight away. Heavy scripts block the page from becoming usable.

What to ask your developer

• Can the main image load faster?
• What third-party scripts are running, and which can go?
• Are images compressed and correctly sized?
• Is caching set up?
• What changed since the site was faster?

Speed and conversion

Faster pages tend to keep more visitors, and more visitors means more enquiries. If your site is slow, fixing it is often cheaper than buying more traffic. It also helps every ad pound go further. See why your website isn't converting and our landing page checklist.

When you're redesigning

Build speed in from the start. Set a performance budget, test early and check again before launch. Our website redesign checklist includes this.

Frequently asked questions

Does speed affect SEO?

It's one of many signals. A fast site rarely outranks a much better answer, but a very slow one can hold you back and certainly hurts conversion.

What's a good PageSpeed score?

Scores are a guide. Focus on real users' experience and the three Core Web Vitals, not a perfect number.

Can you speed up our site?

Yes. See our website design and SEO services, or book a consultation.