There's a number that should hang on the wall of every company with a website: every extra second of load time cuts conversions by around 7%. That's not a lab figure — it's the pattern we see in every analytics account we look at. A slow website isn't a technical issue: it's a sales tap dripping every single day of the year.
What Google measures (and you should watch)
Google evaluates loading experience through the Core Web Vitals, three metrics that are also a ranking factor:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — how long the main element takes to render. Target: under 2.5 seconds.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — how long the site takes to respond when the user taps something. Target: under 200 ms.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — how much the content "jumps around" while loading. Target: under 0.1.
You can check yours for free in PageSpeed Insights. If they come back red, you're not looking at a cosmetic detail: Google is showing your site less than it could, and your visitors are leaving before they see it.
What makes almost every slow website slow
Unoptimised images
Cause number one, by far. 3 MB photos where 150 KB would do, legacy formats instead of WebP, and pages loading all twenty gallery images when the user only sees two. Fixing this alone usually cuts a site's weight in half.
Bloated themes and plugins
Template websites load the code for everything the template could do, not what your site actually does. Add fifteen plugins and every page drags scripts nobody uses. It's the underlying reason a custom-built website flies: it only carries the code it needs.
Server and caching misconfiguration
Overloaded shared hosting, no compression, no browser caching, no HTTP/2. Invisible settings that multiply load times — and that almost nobody reviews after launch.
Third-party scripts
Chats, pixels, maps, embedded videos, external fonts... Each one seems harmless; together they can double your load time. Audit them regularly and remove the ones that no longer earn their keep.
Why it matters twice as much on mobile
Most of your traffic arrives on a phone, often on patchy coverage — hotels know this well: their customer searches from the airport or the beach. A site that "runs fine" on the office computer can be maddening on flaky 4G. Speed is measured on mobile, or it isn't being measured at all.
What to do this week
Run your site through PageSpeed Insights, check the three metrics on mobile and read the opportunities list: it almost always starts with images and scripts. If the foundation is an overloaded template, consider whether it's time to rebuild on a fast base — the cost comes back in conversion and rankings.
At staycreative, performance isn't an afterthought: it's a starting requirement of every website we build. If you want to know what your current speed is costing you, ask us for a review.
