Website Speed Guide
Page speed affects everything from visitor satisfaction to search rankings. This guide explains what influences speed and how to improve it.
Last updated: August 2026
Why speed matters
Visitors expect pages to load quickly. When pages are slow, people are more likely to leave before they ever see your content. Search engines also consider speed as one of many ranking signals.
What affects page speed
- Large, unoptimized images
- Heavy or unnecessary scripts
- Slow web hosting
- Too many redirects
- Third-party widgets and trackers
Core Web Vitals explained
Core Web Vitals are a set of standard speed and stability measurements from Google.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content loads
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page responds to input
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the layout shifts as it loads
Example Core Web Vitals scores (0–100)
How to test your speed
You can test your speed with free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, which scores both performance and Core Web Vitals. InspectRank also reviews speed-related signals as part of every inspection.
Practical ways to speed up your site
- Compress and resize images before uploading
- Enable caching
- Reduce the number of plugins and scripts
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
- Choose a fast, reliable host
- Minimize redirects
When to get help
If your site remains slow after the basics, a web developer can review your hosting, code, and server configuration. Sharing your InspectRank report with them is a good starting point.
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