Why Your Website Is Slow (And How to Actually Fix It)
Every 100ms of delay drops conversions by 1%. We break down the top 6 reasons sites are slow — and what to actually do about it.
Google has confirmed it: speed affects rankings. And conversions drop 1% for every 100ms of delay. If your site loads in 4 seconds, you're losing money right now.
How to check your speed
Open PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) and enter your URL. Watch three metrics: LCP (when main content loads), INP (interaction responsiveness), and CLS (layout shifts).
Top 6 reasons sites are slow
1. Heavy images
The most common cause. JPEG/PNG images weighing 2–5 MB each. Fix: convert to WebP, use lazy loading, compress to ≤200 KB.
2. Too many plugins (WordPress)
Every plugin adds JavaScript and CSS. 20 plugins = 20 scripts on every page. Fix: plugin audit, remove unused ones, consider migrating to a faster stack.
3. No CDN
If your server is in Berlin and your client is in LA — every request travels halfway around the world. A CDN (like Cloudflare) serves files from the server closest to the user.
4. Render-blocking scripts
Scripts in <head> block page rendering. The browser waits for the script to load before showing anything. Fix: async/defer attributes, move scripts to end of body.
5. No caching
Browser downloads the same files on every visit. Proper HTTP cache headers let the browser store static files locally.
6. Cheap hosting
Shared hosting at $2/mo shares resources with thousands of other sites. Peak hours slow your site because of neighbors. VPS or Vercel solves this fundamentally.
Quick win: convert all images to WebP and add Cloudflare. This gives +20–40% speed boost without touching code.
What we do in a Core Web Vitals audit
We measure baseline, find bottlenecks, and deliver a prioritized fix list with expected impact. Typical result: LCP drops from 4+ seconds to under 1.5 seconds.
"Speed optimization isn't a one-time event. It's a process: measure, fix, verify, repeat."