[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":135},["ShallowReactive",2],{"insight-/insights/why-a-slow-website-costs-you-customers":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"date":125,"description":126,"extension":127,"image":128,"meta":129,"navigation":130,"path":131,"seo":132,"stem":133,"updated":128,"__hash__":134},"insights/insights/why-a-slow-website-costs-you-customers.md","Why a slow website costs you customers",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":116},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,30,34,37,44,50,56,62,66,69,73,76,96,104,108],[10,11,12],"p",{},"More than half of visitors give up on a website that takes over three seconds to load on a phone. They don't complain, they don't email you about it — they press back and ring the next business on the list. A slow website doesn't feel broken from the inside. From the outside, it's quietly costing you customers every single day.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"what-slow-actually-means","What \"slow\" actually means",[10,19,20],{},"Google measures how long it takes for the main content of your page to appear — they call it Largest Contentful Paint, but all you need to know is the number. Under 2.5 seconds is acceptable. Under one second feels instant.",[10,22,23,24,29],{},"Our own website loads its main content in about half a second, and scores 100 out of 100 on Google's performance test. We're not saying that to show off — we're saying it because we ",[25,26,28],"a",{"href":27},"/portfolio/digital-copper","publish the receipts",", and because it proves the numbers are achievable for an ordinary business website, not just for tech giants.",[14,31,33],{"id":32},"why-small-business-websites-end-up-slow","Why small-business websites end up slow",[10,35,36],{},"Almost every slow site we're asked to look at has the same few problems.",[10,38,39,43],{},[40,41,42],"strong",{},"Page builders and themes doing too much."," Drag-and-drop builders load hundreds of files whether your page needs them or not. It's like posting a letter in a shipping container.",[10,45,46,49],{},[40,47,48],{},"Photos straight off the camera."," A phone photo is often 4–8 MB. A properly prepared web image is 50–100 KB — the same picture, eighty times lighter. Ten unoptimised photos on your homepage and you've built a slow site out of nothing else.",[10,51,52,55],{},[40,53,54],{},"Cheap shared hosting."," If your hosting costs £2.99 a month, your website is sharing a server with hundreds of strangers. When their sites get busy, yours gets slow.",[10,57,58,61],{},[40,59,60],{},"Plugins on plugins."," Every plugin added \"just for one thing\" loads on every page, forever. They pile up like drawers full of cables.",[14,63,65],{"id":64},"why-google-cares-and-why-ai-does-too","Why Google cares — and why AI does too",[10,67,68],{},"Speed isn't just about impatient visitors. Google uses page experience as a ranking signal, so a slow site starts every race a few steps behind. And the new AI answers — ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews — draw from pages that are easy to fetch and read. Slow, bloated pages make that harder.",[14,70,72],{"id":71},"test-yours-in-two-minutes","Test yours in two minutes",[10,74,75],{},"Don't take anyone's word for it, including ours:",[77,78,79,90,93],"ol",{},[80,81,82,83,89],"li",{},"Open ",[25,84,88],{"href":85,"rel":86},"https://pagespeed.web.dev/",[87],"nofollow","PageSpeed Insights"," and enter your web address",[80,91,92],{},"Look at the mobile score first — that's how most of your customers see you",[80,94,95],{},"Find the \"Largest Contentful Paint\" number. Over 2.5 seconds means you're losing people",[10,97,98,99,103],{},"Or ",[25,100,102],{"href":101},"/audit","run our free website report"," — it checks speed alongside the other things that decide whether visitors become enquiries, and explains the results in plain English.",[14,105,107],{"id":106},"if-yours-is-slow","If yours is slow",[10,109,110,111,115],{},"Sometimes it's fixable — compress the images, remove the dead plugins, move to decent hosting. Sometimes the platform itself is the problem, and no amount of tinkering makes a shipping container light. We'll tell you honestly which one you're dealing with. ",[25,112,114],{"href":113},"/contact","Book a 30-minute call"," — no pitch, no pressure.",{"title":117,"searchDepth":118,"depth":118,"links":119},"",2,[120,121,122,123,124],{"id":16,"depth":118,"text":17},{"id":32,"depth":118,"text":33},{"id":64,"depth":118,"text":65},{"id":71,"depth":118,"text":72},{"id":106,"depth":118,"text":107},"2026-03-01","Most visitors leave a website that takes more than three seconds to load. What makes small-business websites slow, what fast feels like, and how to test yours in two minutes.","md",null,{},true,"/insights/why-a-slow-website-costs-you-customers",{"title":5,"description":126},"insights/why-a-slow-website-costs-you-customers","JudvFvwXikc5RFhNl2Cfm8Jh0vxcCfeKfsfZQUYnrps",1784230398622]