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Your website might look great but if it’s slow, users won’t stick around. Learn why performance matters and how to speed things up.
Have you ever visited a site that looked visually impressive but still felt sluggish?
Even if your website looks amazing, visitors will quickly leave if it doesn’t perform well. A slow site is frustrating, damaging to your brand’s credibility, and detrimental to SEO.
Here’s how to fix it.
Today, speed isn’t just about loading times. Google and your visitors care about how quickly your website feels ready and usable:
Poor performance in these metrics usually means visitors notice a slow website experience.
Tip: Check your site performance using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Here are the most common performance bottlenecks and practical fixes:
Large, uncompressed images significantly slow down page loading times.
Solution: Use next-generation formats like .avif
or .webp
, compress your images properly, and deliver responsive images tailored for each device (Astro’s built-in <Image />
component simplifies this).
If your website uses drag-and-drop builders or many plugins, you’re probably loading excessive JavaScript.
Solution: Remove unnecessary scripts and plugins, or consider migrating to a lightweight static site generator like Astro.
Shared hosting often means shared performance issues.
Solution: Invest in modern hosting providers like Netlify or DigitalOcean which come with built-in CDN functionality.
Third-party content such as embedded videos or social media widgets often loads slowly and impacts your site’s speed negatively.
Solution: Lazy-load external embeds or show static placeholders that only load the full content when clicked.
Without caching or code optimisation, your site loads slowly every single visit.
Solution: Implement caching headers, minify your CSS and JavaScript files, and enable gzip or Brotli compression for quicker content delivery.
Google explicitly includes page speed and Core Web Vitals in its search algorithms. Slow-loading sites rank lower and generate fewer conversions.
Remember, fast websites create trust, improve user experience, and generate more leads.
At Mapletree, we build each site by hand for exceptional performance. We avoid unnecessary code, heavy plugins, and bulky frameworks.
Our tech stack includes:
.avif
images with responsive loadingIf your website feels slow, we can help you identify issues and provide practical solutions. Whether it’s a full rebuild or a quick performance tune-up, we’re here to help.
Contact us for a free performance audit.
Or check out Why Minimal Websites Convert Better to learn more about the advantages of simple, lightweight design.
Founder of Mapletree Studio. Everything has a reason to exist, nothing more, nothing less. I craft minimal websites that prove simple always outperforms complex.
Mapletree Studio specialises in minimal, high-performance websites that convert. Based in the Midlands, serving businesses across the UK.