A slow website quietly costs you enquiries. Visitors on a phone will not wait long for a page that shows a blank screen, and search engines take page experience into account when ranking results. Yet most business owners do not know how to tell whether their site is slow, or what to ask a developer to fix.
This checklist is written for owners and managers, not engineers. Work through it in order, note what you find, and you will have a clear brief for whoever looks after your website.
Step 1: Measure before you change anything
Start with free tools. Google PageSpeed Insights tests a page and reports Core Web Vitals, the measures Google uses for loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Google Search Console shows the same measures across your whole site, based on real visitor data where there is enough traffic.
- Test your home page, your most important service or product page and your contact page
- Look at the mobile results first, because they are usually the weakest
- Note the Largest Contentful Paint, which shows how long the main content takes to appear
- Save screenshots of the results so you can compare after changes
- Open the site on your own phone using mobile data, not office Wi-Fi
Do not chase a perfect score. The goal is a site that feels quick for real visitors, especially on the pages that bring in business.
Step 2: Check your images
Oversized images are the most common reason business websites are slow. A photo taken on a modern phone can be several megabytes, and if it is uploaded directly it will be sent to every visitor at full size.
- Images are resized to the largest size they actually appear on screen
- Photos use modern formats such as WebP or AVIF where supported
- Images below the first screen load only when the visitor scrolls to them
- Sliders and carousels on the home page are replaced with one strong image
- Logos and icons use SVG files where possible
For example, a home page banner that appears at about 1,600 pixels wide does not need a 5,000 pixel original. Fixing images alone often makes a visible difference.
Before buying faster hosting, check whether your images are simply too big.
Step 3: Review plugins, scripts and third-party tools
Every chat widget, tracking pixel, font, slider and plugin adds code that the browser must download and run. Over the years, sites collect tools that nobody remembers adding.
- List every plugin or app installed and remove the ones not in use
- Check how many tracking and marketing scripts load on every page
- Load chat widgets after the main page content, not before it
- Limit custom fonts to the weights and styles you actually use
- Avoid heavy page builders on simple pages where a lighter template would do
Ask your marketing team before removing tracking scripts, but also ask whether anyone still uses the data. Old pixels from past campaigns are common and easy to clear.
Step 4: Look at hosting and caching
If your server takes a long time to respond, nothing else will feel fast. Very cheap shared hosting can struggle when other sites on the same server are busy, and a server located far from your customers adds delay to every request.
- Page caching is turned on, so pages are not rebuilt for every visitor
- A content delivery network serves files from locations near your visitors
- The server runs a current, supported version of PHP or your platform
- The database is cleaned of old revisions, spam comments and expired data
- Hosting is located sensibly for your main market, such as the UK, Pakistan or the Gulf
If you serve customers in several regions, a content delivery network often helps more than moving the server itself.
Step 5: Protect the mobile experience
Speed is also about how a page feels while loading. Content that jumps around as images and adverts appear is frustrating and can cause wrong taps.
- Images and embeds have fixed dimensions so the layout does not shift
- Pop-ups do not cover the screen as soon as a visitor arrives
- Buttons respond immediately when tapped
- The menu and contact button work before every script has finished loading
Test this yourself on an older or mid-range phone if you can. Many of your customers will not be using the latest flagship model, and a site that feels fine on a new phone can feel sluggish on a budget handset. Ask a colleague or family member to try your contact form and tell you honestly how it felt.
Pay attention to forms in particular. A form that waits for a heavy script before it accepts typing, or that reloads the whole page on submit, loses enquiries at the very last step.
Step 6: Keep it fast after launch
Websites slow down gradually as content, plugins and campaigns are added. Treat speed as a regular check rather than a one-off project.
- Re-test your key pages every month and after major changes
- Agree a rule that new images are compressed before upload
- Review new plugins and scripts before they go live
- Keep themes, plugins and the platform updated on a schedule
Marketing campaigns are a common cause of slow pages. A new landing page with a large video, several tracking pixels and an embedded form can be much slower than the rest of your site. Test campaign pages before you send paid traffic to them, since you are paying for every visitor who gives up waiting.
What to do with your findings
Once you have worked through the list, you will know whether the main issue is images, scripts, hosting or the site build itself. Share your notes and screenshots with your developer and ask them to explain which fixes they will make first and how they will measure the result.
If you would rather have specialists handle it, Zartash Technologies offers website speed optimisation that covers images, code, caching and hosting, with before and after measurements on your key pages. See our Website Speed Optimization service for details.