Every second your website drags its feet, you could be losing potential buyers. Page takes too long to load? People bounce. Slow checkout? That’s money left on the table. If your site runs sluggishly, the impact shows in sales, trust and efficiency. That’s why a regular performance audit is essential.
Why this matters
This isn’t about tech. It’s about business.
- Lost revenue
Slow pages kill conversions. Every extra second costs sales, quietly and steadily. - Missed growth
When your site performance slips, launching offers or campaigns takes more time and energy. - Damaged trust
All it takes is a laggy page or broken layout to make your brand feel unreliable. - Wasted effort
Your offer might be great, but it won't matter if the page behind it frustrates your customers.
Your website should support your goals. Not sabotage them.
Key tip: Small improvements can lead to big results. Even shaving off one second from your load time can boost conversions. You don’t need a full rebuild to make an impact.
The audit guide: what you need to know
1. Know the business stakes
A few stats worth knowing:
- A one-second delay can drop conversion rates by 4 to 7 percent
- Over 50 percent of mobile users will leave if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load
- The BBC found it lost 10 percent of users for every extra second in page load
Speed isn't just technical. It's financial.
2. What a speed audit actually does
A performance audit reviews:
- How fast your site loads
- What is slowing it down (images, scripts, third-party apps)
- Whether it's mobile friendly and responsive
- How it performs for real users, not just in a test environment
You don’t need to know how to code. You just need to know what to check and how to prioritise the fixes.
3. Tools to use
Start with free, simple tools:
- Google PageSpeed Insights – tells you how fast your site loads and what is causing delays
- WebPageTest – lets you simulate real-world load times from different locations
- Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools) – shows performance issues in a clean report
Run tests on key pages: homepage, product pages, landing pages and checkout.
4. What to look for
- Large or uncompressed images – these are the usual suspects
- Too many scripts – chat tools, tracking pixels or pop-ups can slow things down
- Missing caching – makes your site load fresh every time instead of storing common files
- Render-blocking resources – things that stop the page from showing until they load
- Poor mobile performance – often overlooked, but often more important than desktop
Real-world examples
Example 1: A local homewares brand
Their product pages took 5.2 seconds to load on mobile. By switching to WebP images, removing unused apps, and lazy-loading below-the-fold content, they dropped it to under 2.4 seconds. Bounce rate fell. Add-to-carts went up.
Example 2: A B2B services business
Their blog section had embedded third-party video players on every post. These were adding 3 seconds of load time. Swapping to static thumbnails with click-to-play dropped load time by more than half.
Common objections
“Our site looks fine to us.”
You’re probably looking at it on a fast connection, on a high-end device. Your customers aren’t. Especially on mobile.
“Isn’t this overkill for a small site?”
Not if you care about conversions. Even if you’re not getting thousands of visitors a day, speed matters. A slow site makes people bounce before they read a word.
“We just launched. We’re good, right?”
Maybe for now. But over time, new content, apps and changes add weight. Auditing performance every few months helps catch these before they pile up.
“We already compressed our images.”
Good start. But performance is more than image size. Scripts, fonts, layout shifts and third-party tools all play a part.
What to do now
1. Run a speed test
Use Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest. Focus on mobile results first. Record your scores and look at which pages perform worst.
2. Triage the problems
Sort issues into quick wins (like image compression or reducing scripts) and bigger jobs (like code splitting or layout rebuilds).
3. Fix what matters most
Prioritise what’s affecting user experience the most. If your product pages or checkout are slow, start there.
4. Test again
After making changes, run the same tests. Did scores improve? Are your pages feeling faster? Did bounce rates drop?
5. Set a reminder
Repeat the audit every three to six months, or after launching a major campaign or new section.
What to do now (checklist)
- Run a free audit using PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse
- Compress large images and remove any apps or scripts you no longer use
- Fix layout shifts and ensure your site loads fast on mobile
- Retest and compare results to measure improvement
- Add performance checks to your regular website maintenance routine
If you’d like someone to review your audit or help interpret what those numbers actually mean for your business, feel free to reach out. We're happy to help you find simple, meaningful ways to speed things up.
