Abandoned carts
Twenty percent of users abandon a cart when the transaction process is too slow. Speed is a checkout feature.
Site speed optimization · Core Web Vitals
Faster pages rank better and convert more
Frustration hurts your users and hurts your rankings. Google's research found that 53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load, and every study of consumer behavior says the same thing: speed changes outcomes. We find what is slowing your site down and fix it, on the site you have now.
- 53%Of mobile visitors leave a page that loads in over 3 seconds (Google)
- 47%Of people expect a mobile page to load in under 2 seconds
- 1%Of sales lost per 100 ms of latency (Amazon)
- 10%More users lost per extra second of load time (BBC)
Why speed matters
Slow costs sales, rankings and customers
Users do not like to be frustrated. Those behaviors are tracked, and they are a strong signal that a page should not be ranking where it was.
Lost rankings
Core Web Vitals are part of how Google evaluates page experience, and bounces back to the results page signal that a page should not rank where it does.
Competitors win
Poor experiences create high bounce rates. Visitors go elsewhere, visit other websites and convert with competitors.
Core Web Vitals
The three metrics Google measures
Google developed a standardized set of metrics to help developers understand how users experience a page. They identify issues in three areas: loading, interaction and visual stability.
- LCPLargest Contentful Paint
How fast the largest image or text block renders. Good: 2.5 seconds or less. Waiting too long for content to appear is the top reason visitors bounce.
- INPInteraction to Next Paint
How quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Replaced First Input Delay in 2024. Good: 200 milliseconds or less.
- CLSCumulative Layout Shift
How much the layout moves after it first renders, such as a button that jumps as an ad or image loads. Good: 0.1 or less.
Other performance metrics we check
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
- Time to First Byte (TTFB)
- Speed Index
- Time to Interactive
- Total Blocking Time
- Server response time
- Render-blocking resources
- Overall performance score
Tools we use
Google PageSpeed InsightsChrome User Experience Report (CrUX)Search Console Core Web Vitals reportLighthouseWeb Vitals Chrome extensionWebPageTestGTmetrixReal-user monitoring
Best practices to improve performance
What we fix, in the order it pays off
Speed work is a list of specific, measurable changes. These are the ones that move Core Web Vitals most.
01Server and delivery (6)
- Faster server response time (TTFB)
- Server-side and browser caching
- Content delivery network (CDN)
- Compression (gzip or Brotli) for HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
- Dedicated or VPS hosting for busy sites
02Images and media (6)
- Images resized to the dimensions they display at
- Modern formats: WebP and AVIF
- Lazy loading below the fold
- Preloading the hero image for LCP
- Video facades instead of embedded players
- Width and height set so nothing shifts
03Code and scripts (6)
- Remove render-blocking JavaScript and CSS
- Minify HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Defer or remove third-party scripts
- Reduce the number of plugins
- Limit HTTP requests
- Fix long tasks that hurt INP
04Structure and crawl (6)
- Reduce redirects and redirect chains
- Fix fonts that cause layout shift or delay text
- Reserve space for ads and embeds
- Clean up unused CSS
- Set caching headers correctly
- Monitor with Search Console after launch
Why choose Infront
Make sure your site performs better than the competition
We tailor each client's website and digital marketing to strategies with proven success, and we achieve award-winning results. Speed work is done by the developers who build our sites, measured with Google's own tools, and reported in numbers you can verify in Search Console.
- Field data from real users, not just lab scores
- Fixes on your current platform wherever possible
- Before-and-after report for every key page
- Hosting, caching and CDN handled in house if needed
Free speed audit
Complimentary website speed audit
Your key pages tested on mobile and desktop, Core Web Vitals status, the causes ranked by impact and a quote to fix them.
- Field and lab data, mobile and desktop
- Causes identified page by page
- Plain-English summary with technical detail attached
Built fast
Sites that were rebuilt for speed
Slow, fragile sites replaced with fast ones. Vadiance loads faster and converts in fewer steps; TrueSport consolidated three slow sites into one.
Vadiance
A brand-first ecommerce redesign that loads faster and takes shoppers from discovery to checkout in fewer steps.
View the case study
TrueSport (USADA)
Three separate websites consolidated into one modern, fast site with a working store and pages the team can edit themselves.
View the case study
Garden of the Gods Self Storage
A dated, fragile site replaced with a clean design and a stable back end. Organic traffic later grew more than 1,000% with SEO.
View the case study
Site speed questions
Frequently asked questions
01What is the difference between page speed and site speed?
Page speed measures how fast the content of one page loads. Site speed is how quickly a browser can load pages from your site in general. Both affect rankings and conversions; we measure both and fix the pages that matter most first.
02What are Core Web Vitals?
Google's standardized metrics for how users experience a page: loading performance (Largest Contentful Paint), responsiveness to interaction (Interaction to Next Paint) and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift). Google reports them per page in Search Console, using data from real Chrome users.
03Does site speed affect SEO?
Yes. Page experience, including Core Web Vitals, is part of how Google evaluates pages, and speed shapes the behavior Google can observe: bounces back to the results page, short visits and abandoned sessions. Faster pages also get crawled more efficiently.
04Can you speed up my current site without rebuilding it?
Usually. Most speed problems come from images, scripts, plugins, hosting and caching, all of which can be fixed in place. We tell you up front if the platform or theme is the real limit and a rebuild would be the better investment.
05What is in the free speed audit?
Field and lab data for your key pages on mobile and desktop, the Core Web Vitals status of each, the specific causes ranked by impact, and a quote for fixing them. Delivered in plain English with the technical detail attached.
06How long does speed optimization take?
Most sites are measurably faster within one to two weeks of work. Core Web Vitals in Search Console update from real-user data over the following 28 days, so the official "good" status follows a few weeks after the fixes.
Free speed audit
Get a free page speed audit.
Send your website address. We will test your key pages on mobile and desktop, report your Core Web Vitals and tell you exactly what is slowing them down.
- Free, no-obligation quote within one business day
- Straight answers from the people who will do the work
- Or call sales now: (719) 577-4404