[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":38},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-en-why-your-website-is-slow":3},{"lang":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"seoTitle":7,"description":8,"date":9,"updated":9,"readingMinutes":10,"html":11,"toc":12},"en","why-your-website-is-slow","Why your small business website is slow (and how much it costs you)","Why Your Small Business Website Is Slow — and the Cost","Why small business websites load slowly on phones, what research says about the cost of every extra second, and what to fix first.","2026-10-28",3,"\u003Cp>If your website takes a few seconds to load on a phone, you are losing clients you never hear about. They tap your result on Google, see a blank screen, go back and pick the next business. Here is why small business sites are slow, what it costs and what to fix first.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"what-a-slow-site-costs\">What a slow site costs\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The research on this is old and consistent. Google's 2016 study of mobile sites found that 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than three seconds to load. Deloitte's 2020 report \u003Cem>Milliseconds Make Millions\u003C\u002Fem> found that improving mobile load time by just 0.1 seconds raised conversion rates for retail sites by about 8%.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Your barbershop or studio is not a retail chain, but the mechanism is the same: every extra second is a moment for the visitor to give up. Google also uses page experience, including speed, as one of its ranking signals, so a slow site tends to show up lower in the results as well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"why-small-business-sites-are-slow\">Why small business sites are slow\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Ch3 id=\"heavy-site-builders\">Heavy site builders\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp>Most drag-and-drop builders load the code for every feature they offer, whether your page uses it or not. A simple page with a price list can end up shipping more code than a web app.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 id=\"uncompressed-images\">Uncompressed images\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp>Photos straight from a phone are often several megabytes each. Without compression and modern formats like WebP or AVIF, a gallery of twenty photos is enough to make the page crawl on a mobile connection.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 id=\"background-videos-and-sliders\">Background videos and sliders\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp>A video behind the headline looks great on a desktop with fast Wi-Fi. On a phone in a busy street it is the reason the headline appears four seconds late.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch3 id=\"too-many-plugins-and-third-party-scripts\">Too many plugins and third-party scripts\u003C\u002Fh3>\n\u003Cp>Chat widgets, pop-ups, several tracking pixels, a booking widget loaded on every page — each one adds weight and delays the moment the page becomes usable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"what-to-fix-first\">What to fix first\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Col>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Test on a phone, on mobile data.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Your office Wi-Fi hides the problem. Google's PageSpeed Insights gives a free score for mobile.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Compress your images.\u003C\u002Fstrong> This alone often cuts the page weight in half.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Remove what nobody uses.\u003C\u002Fstrong> If the chat widget gets no messages, it is just slowing the page down.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Put the important things first.\u003C\u002Fstrong> Price, location, opening hours and a WhatsApp or booking button belong on the first screen.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003Cli>\u003Cstrong>Consider a rebuild when the platform is the problem.\u003C\u002Fstrong> If the builder itself is heavy, no amount of tweaking will make it fast.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Fol>\n\u003Ch2 id=\"how-fast-is-fast-enough\">How fast is fast enough?\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>A good target is the main content on screen in under a second on a mid-range phone. This site loads in under a second because it is prerendered, uses compressed images and subset web fonts, and ships little JavaScript before the page is visible — the footer shows the real load time of the page you are reading.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you want to know where your site stands, send me the link. I will reply with a short list of fixes in priority order, and if a rebuild makes more sense, a demo of the new site within 48 hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n",[13,17,20,23,26,29,32,35],{"id":14,"text":15,"level":16},"what-a-slow-site-costs","What a slow site costs",2,{"id":18,"text":19,"level":16},"why-small-business-sites-are-slow","Why small business sites are slow",{"id":21,"text":22,"level":10},"heavy-site-builders","Heavy site builders",{"id":24,"text":25,"level":10},"uncompressed-images","Uncompressed images",{"id":27,"text":28,"level":10},"background-videos-and-sliders","Background videos and sliders",{"id":30,"text":31,"level":10},"too-many-plugins-and-third-party-scripts","Too many plugins and third-party scripts",{"id":33,"text":34,"level":16},"what-to-fix-first","What to fix first",{"id":36,"text":37,"level":16},"how-fast-is-fast-enough","How fast is fast enough?",1793479838638]