People leave slow pages, and search engines notice. Speed is one of the few website qualities you can measure and improve in a clear order.
What visitors feel
A page that takes several seconds to show anything feels broken on a phone. On a mobile connection those seconds add up quickly.
The usual causes
Most slow sites share the same few problems.
- Photos uploaded at camera size
- Many scripts and widgets loading at once
- Hosting that is shared with hundreds of busy sites
- Fonts and animations that load before the text
How to measure it
Run the page through Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile settings. Look at how long the main content takes to appear and how soon the page responds to a tap, and fix the worst item first.