Why speed matters
When a page takes too long to open, many visitors simply leave before it loads. Speed also matters to Google: page experience, including how fast your pages load, is one of the signals it looks at.
The good news is that most slow websites suffer from the same few problems, and they are easy to fix.
1. Compress your images
Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page. A photo straight from a phone can be several megabytes, far more than a website needs. Compressing it can cut the size dramatically while it still looks sharp on screen.
2. Use modern image formats
WebP images are usually much smaller than JPG or PNG at the same visual quality, and every modern browser supports them. Many website builders and plugins can convert your images to WebP automatically.
The fastest image is the one that is already the right size, in the right format.
3. Lazy-load images further down the page
There is no need to load every image the moment someone opens a page. With lazy loading, images lower down only load when the visitor scrolls near them. In plain HTML it is a single attribute:
<img src="team-photo.webp"
alt="Our team in Doha"
width="1200" height="800"
loading="lazy">One exception: don't lazy-load the main image at the top of the page. Visitors see it first, so it should load straight away.
4. Choose good hosting and turn on caching
Cheap, overloaded hosting can slow down even a well-built site. Look for fast servers, and make sure caching is on, so pages are served instantly instead of being rebuilt every time. A CDN can also help visitors who are far away from your server.
5. Keep your site lean
- Remove plugins and scripts you no longer use.
- Limit custom fonts to the weights you actually need.
- Avoid auto-playing videos and heavy sliders at the top of the page.
Want a site that is fast from day one? See how Ash Lab builds websites.