How to Improve Website Speed

Improving website speed means reducing how long pages take to load and respond, and it usually comes down to fixing a handful of common culprits: oversized images, unoptimised code, slow hosting and lack of caching. This guide covers practical steps you can take, roughly in order of typical impact.

Start by measuring

Before changing anything, get a baseline. Check your key pages with a page speed tool, which uses data from Google PageSpeed Insights where available, so you can see which specific issues are flagged rather than guessing. Understanding metrics like Largest Contentful Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift helps target the right fixes; our Core Web Vitals guide explains what these mean and their current thresholds.

Optimise images

Images are one of the most common causes of slow pages. Practical steps:

• Compress images before uploading them, since many are exported at far higher quality than a webpage needs
• Use appropriately sized images rather than a huge original scaled down by CSS
• Use modern image formats where your platform supports them
• Set width and height attributes so the browser reserves space and avoids layout shifts while images load

Reduce and defer unnecessary code

Heavy JavaScript and CSS can slow both loading and responsiveness:

• Remove plugins, scripts or widgets you no longer actually use
• Defer non-essential scripts so they do not block the main content from rendering
• Minify CSS and JavaScript files to reduce their size
• Be selective with third-party scripts such as chat widgets and trackers, since each one adds its own loading and execution cost

Improve hosting and server response

If your server is slow to respond in the first place, no amount of front-end optimisation will fully compensate. Consider:

• Whether your hosting plan or provider is adequate for your traffic levels
• Using a content delivery network to serve static assets closer to visitors
• Enabling server-side caching so pages do not need to be rebuilt from scratch on every request

Use browser caching

Configure caching headers so returning visitors do not need to re-download assets that have not changed, such as logos, stylesheets and scripts. This mainly benefits repeat visits rather than first-time loads, but it still meaningfully improves the experience for regular users.

Reduce redirects

Every redirect adds an extra round trip before the browser reaches the final page. Audit your redirects and remove unnecessary chains — for example, a URL that redirects twice before reaching its destination should be updated to redirect directly. A HTTP status tool can help you check what is happening across your key URLs.

Fix layout shift issues

Slow-loading fonts, images without reserved dimensions, and content that gets inserted above existing content are common causes of visual instability, measured by Cumulative Layout Shift. Reserving space for elements before they load is usually a straightforward fix once identified.

Prioritise your most important pages first

You do not need to fix every page on your site at once. Focus on your homepage and the pages that get the most traffic or that matter most for conversions, since improvements there will have the biggest overall impact.

Re-check after changes

Speed optimisation is iterative. After making changes, re-run your checks to confirm they had the intended effect, since some fixes interact with each other in ways that are hard to predict in advance. A broader website performance check can help you track this over time, and reviewing your site's overall technical health with a website audit will catch related issues such as broken redirects that might also be affecting speed. ## Platform-specific considerations

The right levers to pull often depend on what your site is built on. Content management systems with many plugins or apps installed tend to accumulate unnecessary scripts over time, so periodically reviewing and removing unused ones is worthwhile. Custom-built sites may benefit more from code-level optimisation such as bundling and lazy loading. Static site generators and modern frameworks often perform well by default, but can still be slowed down by large media files or excessive third-party embeds.

Balancing speed with functionality

Not every slow element is worth removing. A video embed, a booking widget or a live chat tool might genuinely help your business even if it adds some loading overhead. The goal is not to strip a site down to the bare minimum, but to make informed trade-offs — for example, loading a chat widget after the main content rather than blocking it, so visitors get a fast first impression without losing the feature entirely.

When to involve a developer

Some speed improvements, like compressing images or removing an unused plugin, are accessible to most site owners. Others, such as restructuring how JavaScript loads, configuring server-side caching, or fixing rendering-blocking resources, typically need development expertise. If your own checks keep flagging the same technical issues without improvement, it is usually a sign that developer involvement will be more effective than further trial and error.

Next step

See exactly what is slowing your pages down with SiteScore's website performance check.