Click.  Wait.  Still waiting.  Loading…  Loading…  Gone.  That’s sometimes the entire customer journey on a slow website.  You can have beautiful graphics.  Great reviews.  Fantastic services.  Twenty years of experience.  The perfect call to action.  But none of it matters if the customer gets tired of waiting before they ever see it.

Your website isn’t a waiting room.  Customers won’t sit patiently until you’re ready for them.  They’ll leave.  And there’s a good chance the next place they go is one of your competitors.  That’s why website speed isn’t simply a technical issue.  It’s a customer-service issue.  And potentially a sales issue.

Here are eight things small businesses should look at when their website feels slow.

1. Start With Your Images

This is one of the most common website-speed problems we encounter.  Modern smartphones take enormous photographs.  A business owner takes a beautiful project photo and uploads it directly to the website.  The problem?  That photograph might be several megabytes.  Now imagine a homepage containing 10 or 15 giant photographs.

Every visitor has to download all that data.  Instead, website images should be properly sized and optimized for how they’re actually being displayed.  You usually don’t need a gigantic print-quality photograph to fill a small section of a website.  Good image optimization can dramatically reduce file sizes while maintaining excellent visual quality.

Your pictures should impress customers—not make them wait.

2. Stop Making Your Homepage Carry the Entire Website

Some homepages try to do everything.  Huge videos.  Sliders.  Animations.  Popups.  Social feeds.  Maps.  Dozens of photographs.  Every service.  Every testimonial.  Every employee.  Every award.  Every certification.  Every thought the owner has had since 1997.  Eventually the homepage starts feeling less like a website and more like a storage unit.  Ask yourself:

Does this element help the customer understand, trust, or contact us?

If not, do you really need it?  Removing unnecessary clutter can improve both website performance and the customer experience.  Sometimes faster website design isn’t about adding something.  It’s about removing something.

3. Be Careful With Video

Video can be fantastic.  A strong video can explain your business, demonstrate a service, introduce your team, or showcase your work.  But video can also become a performance problem if it’s implemented poorly.  Large background videos can consume significant bandwidth.  Auto-playing videos may create problems on slower connections.  Multiple videos on one page can make things even heavier.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use video.  It means you should use it strategically.

Ask:  Does this video add enough value to justify what it’s asking the visitor’s device to load?  If the answer is yes, optimize it.  If the answer is no, maybe a great photograph and a strong headline will do the job better.

4. Test Your Website on a Phone

Your website may feel fast on your office computer.  That doesn’t mean it’s fast for your customers.  Your computer may have high-speed internet.  Cached website files.  A large screen.  A fast processor.  A direct network connection.  Your customer might be standing in a parking lot with two bars of cellular service.  That’s a very different experience.

Pull out your phone.  Turn off Wi-Fi.  Visit your website.  Now browse like a customer.  How quickly does the homepage appear?  How long before you can actually use it?  Can you immediately see what the company does?  Can you tap the phone number?  Does the menu respond quickly?  Can you easily complete the contact form?  Don’t only test your website under perfect conditions.

Your customers don’t always live under perfect conditions.

5. Watch the Plugins and Extras

Modern websites can do amazing things.  There’s a plugin, script, widget, or integration for almost everything.  Chat.  Calendars.  Reviews.  Social  feeds.  Popups.  Analytics.  Animations.  Tracking.  Forms.  Maps.  Advertising.  And individually, many of these tools are useful.  The problem happens when they start piling up.  Every additional feature can potentially require more files, scripts, connections, or processing.  Over time, a website can accumulate years of “stuff” nobody even remembers installing.

Periodically ask:  Are we still using this?  If the answer is no, it may be time to clean house.  Your website doesn’t get bonus points for having the most plugins.

6. Your Hosting Matters

Your website lives somewhere.  The quality and configuration of that hosting environment can affect how quickly your website responds.  A beautifully optimized website running on poor hosting can still struggle.  Likewise, paying for expensive hosting won’t magically fix a badly built website.

Performance is a combination of factors.  Your website design, images, code, database, caching, content delivery, hosting environment, and third-party tools all play a role.  That’s why speed problems sometimes require looking at the whole website, not just changing one setting.

7. Keep Your Website Maintained

Websites aren’t “build it once and forget it” projects.  Technology changes.  Plugins change.  Themes change.  Browsers change.  PHP versions change.  Security requirements change.  Your content grows.  Your database grows.  Old files accumulate.  A website that performed beautifully several years ago may gradually become slower or less reliable.

Regular maintenance can help identify:

• Outdated software
• Broken features
• Unused plugins
• Database clutter
• Oversized media
• Compatibility problems
• Security issues

Think of it like maintaining a vehicle.  You don’t wait until the engine falls onto the highway before checking the oil.  Hopefully.

8. Measure Speed Instead of Guessing

“I think the website seems pretty fast.”  That’s not really a measurement.  Website performance tools can help identify what’s actually happening.  One useful resource is Google PageSpeed Insights.  It can provide information about both mobile and desktop performance and identify potential areas for improvement.

But don’t become obsessed with chasing a perfect score just for bragging rights.  The goal isn’t simply:  “Look! We got 100!”  The goal is:  “Our customers can quickly access and use our website.”  Performance scores can help diagnose issues.  The customer experience is what ultimately matters.

Speed Is Part of the Customer Experience

Think about the businesses you interact with every day.  We expect things to happen quickly.  We expect apps to open.  We expect search results to appear.  We expect videos to start.  We expect websites to respond.  When something doesn’t, we notice.  Your customers notice too.  And unfortunately, they may associate the experience of your website with the experience of your company.

A slow website can quietly communicate:  Outdated.  Frustrating.  Difficult.  Maybe I’ll try somebody else.  A fast, responsive website communicates something very different:  Professional.  Modern.  Ready.

Slow Websites Can Waste Your Marketing Money

Here’s another reason speed matters.  You may be paying to bring visitors to your website.  Perhaps through Google Ads, Facebook advertising, SEO, Social media, Email marketing, Direct mail, Networking, and Google Business Profile.  Every marketing effort is trying to accomplish the same basic thing:  Get somebody to visit your business online.  Imagine paying for the click…  and then making the customer wait.

You’re essentially buying traffic and then putting a locked door in front of it.  Before spending more money generating visitors, make sure your website provides those visitors with a good experience when they arrive.

Don’t Confuse Speed With Simplicity

A fast website doesn’t need to be boring.  It can still have:  beautiful photography,  great design, videos, animations, interactive features, strong branding, and helpful content. The key is intentional design.  Every element should have a purpose.

The question isn’t:  “Can we put this on the website?”  Modern web technology means the answer is probably yes.  The better question is:  “Should we?”  If a feature helps customers understand your business, builds trust, or encourages action, it may be worth including.  If it’s there simply because someone thought it looked cool in 2019, maybe it’s time to reconsider.

Try the 10-Second Speed Test

Here’s a simple exercise.  Pull out your phone.  Visit your website.  Count to ten.  By the time you reach ten, can you:  See the page?  Understand what the company does?  Navigate the website?  Find the phone number?  Tap a call-to-action button?  Now try the same thing with one of your competitors.  Which experience feels better?  You don’t need to be a programmer to notice the difference.  Your customers certainly aren’t programmers.  They’re simply trying to get something done.

Every Second Counts

Your website doesn’t need to win a Formula One race.  But it does need to respect your customer’s time.  Optimize your images.  Remove unnecessary clutter.  Use video intelligently.  Test the mobile experience.  Clean up unnecessary plugins.  Use quality hosting.  Maintain the website.  Measure actual performance.

Because every unnecessary second creates another opportunity for someone to leave.  And once they leave, you may never know they were there.

Is Your Website Fast Enough?

At DFW Website Designers, we believe a business website should be fast, professional, mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and designed to generate leads.  We help businesses improve websites that have become slow, outdated, difficult to use, or ineffective at converting visitors into customers.

Our services include:

• Professional Website Design
• Website Redesigns
• Website Hosting & Maintenance
• Local SEO
• SEO Blogging
• Landing Pages
• Google Business Profile Optimization
• AI Receptionists
• Lead Generation Strategies

Wondering how your website performs from a customer’s perspective?  Schedule a FREE Website Evaluation with DFW Website Designers.  We’ll review your website and identify opportunities to improve its performance, usability, messaging, and ability to generate leads.

Your website isn’t a waiting room. Don’t make your customers wait.