Why website performance matters and things you can do to improve it

Your website often serves as the first impression of your brand. It’s not just about aesthetics or functionality anymore — performance is a critical factor that can make or break your online presence.

It may seem obvious that website performance is important—of course you want your website to be fast and easy to use. However, it’s not always clear what impact it really has. The simple answer is that using a high-performance website provides a far more enjoyable experience for your users. But there’s much more to it than that, and I want to delve into those details and explore how you can make some improvements.

What does website performance mean?

In terms of performance I’m going to be referring to the the metrics by which Pagespeed Insights (PSI) measures your site:

• Performance
• Accessibility
• Best Practices
• SEO

How can I measure it?

You can run your website through PSI and see how it’s performing. You can do this either by:

• Visiting the PageSpeed Insights website directly and pasting in your website link,
• or you can use Chrome dev tools by right clicking on your website, and selecting ‘Inspect’. You can then navigate to the Lighthouse tab and run a performance check there.

A couple of tips:

• If using PageSpeed Insights, don’t just test your home page. You’ll need to test as many pages as possible to check your website performance as a whole.
• If using Lighthouse, you’ll get a better impression by inspecting your site in an Incognito browser. This is because it also takes into account any other Chrome extensions you may have installed.

I’ve tested my site, now what?

Now we get into what each of the points above mean, and how you can go about improving your website.

---

Performance: getting up to speed

We’ve all had the frustration of a slow loading website – hell, I’m old enough to remember when it would take upto a minute to load a simple website 👀 Things are a lot quicker now thankfully, but still, Studies show that users expect a site to load within 2-3 seconds. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but in the internet world; 3 seconds is a long time.

But what does that actually mean?

Think about when you’re shopping around for a service, or a product. If you’re like me, you may have multiple tabs open, comparing the price or features of something you’re looking to purchase. If a website doesn’t load quickly (or at all) you’ll likely just close that tab and move onto something else that does load quickly. Therefore losing a potential customer.

A fast website ensures users stay engaged, explore your content, and take action.

What does Google PSI check for in terms of Performance?

The results here are where you may really need to fine tune your website to achieve a high score. Google PSI checks for:

• Core web vital metrics and additional performance metrics
• Effecient image loading
• Unused javascript and CSS
• Render-blocking resources
• Server response time
• Lazy loading
• Text compression
• Caching
• Resource load prioritisation

Does a faster website increase my search engine ranking?

Yes! Search engines like Google prioritise fast websites. Page speed is a direct ranking factor, and slower websites are penalised in search results. Poor performance can reduce your visibility, making it harder for potential customers to find you.

What can you do?

First off, make sure you have a well coded website. Whether that’s a static or CMS based website such as WordPress—this will take care of a lot of those points.

However it’s difficult to achieve a perfect score in performance, especially when it comes to WordPress. There are a number of performance plugins out there that can help. I personally use:

• Smush (image compression)
• Hummingbird (site optimisation)

If you’re not using the Pro version of those (they are both free), then add on Converter for Media to convert your images to webp.

Please note: Backup your site before using any of these plugins, they make significant changes to your WordPress set up and quite often break things. If in doubt, ask an expert to configure it for you, preferably on a staging server first.

You should also assess your website hosting and make sure you’re using something fast. I highly recommend Krystal.io who I’ve been using for years. They’re fast, their support is excellent and are commited to green hosting. Pretty sure they offer free migration from your current host too.

---

Accessibility: including everyone in the conversation

Accessibility, when talking about websites, refers to anything that you put in place in your website code or content to ensure people with visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments can also enjoy access your website. Googles PSI Accessibility feature measures how inclusive your website is, offering suggestions to ensure that people with disabilities can navigate and use your site effectively. 

This will measure things such as:

(list is not exhaustive)

• Keyboard navigation
• Colour contrast issues
• Alt text for images
• Use of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)
• Form labels
• Proper heading structure
• Language attribute
• Focus indicators
• Link names
• Names and descriptions
• Avoiding duplicate IDs
• Role and state information

Accessibility is an ethical commitment that aligns your brand with values of fairness and social responsibility, showing that you care about all your users. An accessible website not only complies with legal standards but also expands your potential audience and creates a more inclusive world.

Note: As well as Google PSI, another tool I use is WAVE report which assesses the accessibility of your page in terms of structure and features.

Does an accessible website increase my search engine ranking?

While search engines don’t explicitly reward accessibility, investing in it creates a ripple effect of improvements across user satisfaction, usability, and compliance—factors that can ultimately help your site rank better.

By prioritising accessibility, you’re not only fostering inclusivity but also aligning with Google’s broader emphasis on user-centric web practices—indirectly positioning your site for better rankings.

How do I make my website accessible?

There are small changes that make a big impact that you can make (without the need of a developer), such as:

• Use descriptive link text – Replace vague links like “Click here” or “Read more” with descriptive text, such as “Learn more about our services” or “Download the accessibility guide.”
• Adding descriptive alt text to your images – Screen readers use alt text to describe images to visually impaired users. It also improves SEO.
• Check colour contrast – Using a tool such as Contrast Checker to make sure your text is readable.
• Add captions or transcripts to Videos
• Test keyboard navigation – Navigate your site using only the Tab key to ensure you can access all interactive elements (like links, buttons, and forms).
• Provide clear form labels – Check that every input field in your forms (e.g., “Name,” “Email”) has a visible and descriptive label. 
• Use headings correctly – Ensure your page content has a logical heading structure
• Write meaningful page titles
• Use accessible fonts – Ensure fonts are simple and easy to read. Avoid overly decorative or script fonts
• Ensure navigation is consistent

This list is not exhaustive but is a good place to start! If you’d like me to audit your website for accessibility, please give me a shout, it’s an area I’m truly passionate about!

---

Best practices: the techy stuff

Best Practices scores assess technical aspects of your website, such as security, outdated APIs, and the use of HTTPS. These factors ensure your website adheres to modern web standards.

This covers areas such as:

• Security
• Performance optimisation (code base, images, caching, etc)
• Web standards
• Resource optimisation
• User Experience (UX) consistency
• Accessibility

If you’re not a developer then this may be where your web development company come into it – some issues like missing SSL certificates may be tackled by your host. If in doubt, talk to your web developer. If you don’t have one, talk to me!

---

SEO: getting your website seen

Lastly, Google’s PSI also measures how well your website aligns with search engine guidelines. It checks for mobile-friendliness, metadata optimisation, and other factors that influence your rankings.

I’m not an SEO expert (that’s a whole other ball game that requires a specialist if you want to really focus on it) but what I can do is ensure all my websites are coded to the highest standards so that they are properly understood by search engines.

What SEO elements Google PSI checks for:

• Meta Tags
• Mobile friendliness (text legibility, button sizes, viewport config, etc)
• HTTPS usage
• Structured data
• Canonical tags
• Indexability
• Font legibility
• Tap target size
• Link optimisation
• Crawlability
• Fast page speed (that pesky page speed again!)
• Avoidance of excessive plugins
• Alt text for images (also for accessibility)
• Responsive design (whether your site dynamically responds to different screen sizes)

How can I improve my SEO?

Assuming you have a WordPress site, here are some quick tips:

1. Use an SEO plugin – I use Yoast. This will give you the ability to optimise titles, meta descriptions, and content for keywords.
2. Use good code: Ensure your theme/code is fast, optimised and mobile friendly.
3. Enable Permalinks: Go to Settings > Permalinks and set them to “Post Name” to create clean, SEO-friendly URLs. (If you’re doing this on an existing site, make sure to set up 301 redirects)
4. Optimise images: Using a plugin such as Smush.
5. Secure your site with HTTPS
6. Optimise for speed – See above for tips.
7. Write natural, useful content – Don’t stuff your content with keywords, write things that people want to read.
8. Use internal linking – Link related blog posts and pages to each other using relevant anchor text to help users and search engines navigate your site.

---

There you have it! A bit of a whirl wind guide to the hows and whys of website performance. This is an area I really enjoy working in, so if you have any questions about your site, please give me a shout on any of my socials (links in footer) or on email.