If your website takes more than three seconds to load, you're losing visitors — and rankings. Google has made it abundantly clear that page experience signals, especially Core Web Vitals, directly influence where your site appears in search results.
What Are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of three metrics that measure real-world user experience:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — measures loading performance. Aim for under 2.5 seconds.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — measures interactivity responsiveness. Aim for under 200 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — measures visual stability. Aim for a score below 0.1.
Practical Steps to Improve Speed
We've helped dozens of Australian businesses improve their web performance. Here are the most impactful changes you can make:
- Optimise images: Use modern formats like WebP and AVIF. Lazy-load images below the fold and serve responsive sizes with the
srcsetattribute. - Minimise JavaScript: Audit your bundles. Remove unused dependencies, code-split aggressively, and defer scripts that aren't critical to the initial render.
- Leverage caching: Set appropriate cache headers for static assets. Use a CDN to serve content from edge locations closer to your Australian users.
- Choose the right hosting: A budget shared host in the US will always be slower for Sydney visitors than a well-configured Australian or Asia-Pacific server.
The Business Impact
Speed isn't just a technical concern. Research consistently shows that every 100ms reduction in load time can increase conversion rates by up to 1%. For e-commerce sites, that translates directly to revenue. For service businesses, it means more enquiry form submissions and phone calls.
If you're unsure where your site stands, run it through Google PageSpeed Insights and get in touch — we offer a free website health check to help you understand exactly what's holding your site back.