Learn a few high-impact ways to improve website performance, from huge images and unnecessary files to fonts, scripts, and more.
A fast website feels better to use.
When a page loads quickly, visitors can get where they need to go without waiting around. That creates less friction, makes the site feel more polished, and gives potential customers a better overall experience. And since your website is often someone's first impression of your business, that matters.
Website performance is a broad topic, and there are lots of technical factors that can affect it. This is not a comprehensive list, but here are some high-impact areas worth considering when you're trying to make a website faster.
Ready? Set. Warp.
Watch Your File Sizes
One of the simplest ways to improve website performance is to pay attention to how much data your visitors have to download.
Anytime someone opens a webpage, their browser has to download and process the various files and resources that make up that page.
Large files can take longer to load and add unnecessary weight to a page. Images are often some of the biggest offenders, but videos, fonts, PDFs, and other assets can contribute, too.
Your Images... They're Yuge.
Images are a good place to start. They're often some of the largest files on a website.
That does not necessarily mean removing images or making everything tiny. It means delivering them in a way that makes sense for the screen and the situation.
Things that can help:
Resize images. If a card on your site is 400 pixels wide, don't upload a 4K image there. Resize it.
Compress images. Reduce unnecessary file size. There are plenty of tools out thereto help with this.
Use modern formats when appropriate, such as WebP or AVIF. (might address directly in a future post.)
Avoid loading large images when a smaller version will do.
Lazy-loading. It allows images to load when they’re needed instead of all at once. Most website platforms handle this automatically, but it’s worth verifying on yours.
A beautiful 2 MB image might look great, but if the same image could look just as good at 200 KB, there is little reason to make visitors download the extra data.
Pro Tip: Check out CloudConvert.com for compression, conversion, and resizing all in one. (I'm not a sponsor)
Your Files… Load Like Sloths
Images are not the only files worth watching. Videos, animations, PDFs, and other assets can add significant weight to a page.
Large files should be compressed and used selectively. For example, a background video can make a page more visually engaging, but it also comes with a much larger performance cost than a static image.
The goal is not necessarily to eliminate large files. It's to make sure they're worth the performance cost they introduce. These can often be compressed or resized too, and there are plenty of free and paid tools that can help.
Fonts… This Isn't Pokémon
Okay. You're probably thinking, "whaaaaat? But I thought text was a fast loader?"
Look… text itself is pretty lightweight. Font files, on the other hand, are what your browser has to load to display that text in the typeface you've chosen. Fonts can be a silent killer. (I've experienced this before, myself)
We've all seen those sites with 5+ different fonts, like someone's trying to catch 'em all. Please don't do that.
Fonts add more weight than you might expect, especially when a site loads multiple font families and lots of different weights and styles. It all adds up.
Honestly, just 1 or 2 font families are more than enough for most websites. You can also be selective about the weights you actually use. If your design only needs regular, medium, and bold, there's usually no reason to load eight different weights.
Good typography does not require a huge collection of font files. One or two font families is plenty for most websites.
Pro Tip: If you're interested in deep-diving into this (most aren't, lol), check out "variable fonts" and how they can impact performance. It can be pretty neat.
Scripts... Assemble!
Wait, No.
Every additional script or piece of code can introduce more work for the browser.
You may have heard terms like tracking pixels, scripts, code, or snippets thrown around. They all refer to different things, but the basic idea is similar: they're little pieces of technology added to your website to do something in the background, like track visitors, run analytics, show ads, power a chat widget, or connect your site to another service.
Analytics tools, chat widgets, tracking pixels, advertising platforms, social feeds, animation libraries, and other integrations can create quite the useful and impactful team. But... the problem is when a website accumulates tools that are no longer necessary or that add more overhead than their value justifies. At some point, you stop assembling a team and start assembling baggage.
Just because you can add it doesn't mean you should.
It's worth periodically asking:
Does this actually help the user or my business?
If the answer is no, forget it. Keep your house clean and clutter-free.
1st, Do the High Impact Fixes
There is no shortage of ways to optimize a website. But thankfully, you don't need to spend hours on end chasing tiny improvements.
Tackle the big problems first. Eat the toad (what my English teacher used to say). Basically, tackle the biggest, nastiest thing first.
Images, media, large files, and scripts are some of the high-impact places I'd advise most business owners to start.
Performance work is often about prioritization. Start with the things creating the most friction, then work down from there. This non-exhaustive list is a good place to start.
Okay, But Why Does Speed Matter?
Speed isn't vanity; it matters. It's part of the user experience. A faster website creates less friction, making it easier for visitors to explore your site, learn about your business, and take the next step toward conversion.
There are plenty of other factors that affect website performance, but these are some of the highest-impact areas worth checking first.
Have questions about your website's performance? Schedule a free consultation. And if you later decide that you'd rather have me handle the improvements for you, or even start from scratch, we can discuss that too.
