Does any of this sound familiar?
- “We get traffic, but hardly any enquiries.”
- “We pay for ads, but the landing page doesn't bring in enough customers.”
- “On mobile, the site feels slow or awkward to use.”
- “We got a poor PageSpeed Insights score and have no idea what it means for the business.”
Website speed is one possible cause. Not the only one: your offer, pricing, trust, traffic quality and messaging matter just as much. But it's a cause you can measure, and it's worth checking before you change your ads or rebuild the whole site.
What a visitor experiences on a slow website
Visitors don't think in technical metrics. They go through three simple moments:
- They wait for what they came to see. The product, the price or the main headline shows up late, and the page doesn't feel ready.
- They tap and nothing happens. “Add to cart” or “Send” doesn't react straight away, so they tap again or give up.
- The page moves under their finger. A banner or image loads late and pushes the content down, and they tap the wrong thing.
Each of these moments adds friction exactly when someone is trying to do something on your site. It doesn't mean every visitor leaves, but it gives some of them one more reason to.
Core Web Vitals in short
Google defined three metrics, called Core Web Vitals, that line up with those three moments. These are Google's thresholds for a “good” experience:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how long it takes for the largest visible piece of content, usually the main image or headline, to appear. More in the LCP article.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures how quickly the page updates after a visitor taps, clicks or types. More in the INP article.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much content moves unexpectedly while the page loads and while it's being used.
A site passes when at least 75% of visits meet these thresholds, assessed separately for phones and computers. What counts is the experience of most of your visitors, not a single test.
Real visitors or a simulated test?
This is where most of the confusion comes from.
- Real-visitor (field) data comes from people who visited your site in Chrome over the last 28 days. The Core Web Vitals assessment is based on it. For sites or pages with little traffic, Google may not have enough data.
- The simulated (lab) test loads the page once, on a test phone. That's where the 0 to 100 score in PageSpeed Insights comes from. It's very useful for finding causes, but it doesn't show what every visitor experiences.
That's why a site can have a modest simulated score and still pass on real-visitor data, or the other way round. The lab score is not the grade Google gives you.
What a performance review can and can't show
A good review can show you:
- which pages and devices have problems;
- which of the three moments (loading, responding, stability) is weakest;
- what is actually slowing the page down: images, scripts, the server, fonts;
- what is worth fixing first.
What it can't do is tell you, from a score alone, how many customers or how much money you're losing. For a business estimate you also need your own numbers: traffic, conversion rate, average order or lead value, and a before-and-after comparison once something is fixed.
Website speed and Google
Core Web Vitals are part of how Google evaluates page experience, and its ranking systems take them into account. Still, a fast site doesn't guarantee a better position: relevance and content quality matter more. You don't need a perfect score; you need your real visitors to have a good experience.
How to check, step by step
- Check your homepage with our free check or directly in Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Check the pages that make money: ad landing pages, product pages, the cart and your contact form.
- Compare phone and desktop. On many sites a large share of visitors come from phones, and that's where problems show up more often.
- Open Google Search Console and look at the Core Web Vitals report to see which groups of pages have problems across the site.
- Put it next to your business data: where people leave, where they abandon the form or the cart.
- Decide what to fix first: the pages with the most traffic or the most sales value, where the problem is largest and the fix is worth the effort.
How Andrei helps
Andrei assesses your site's health from several angles, mostly technical, where problems end up costing you enquiries, orders and customers who don't come back.
He works from three reference points:
- Google's web performance standards: Core Web Vitals, measured on your real visitors.
- Conversion rate: where people stop before they ask for a quote or buy.
- Retention rate: what can stop customers from coming back.
He uses modern tools and analysis methods, the same ones the largest businesses in the United States rely on. The goal is a better experience on your site and fewer reasons for people to give up on it because of problems that can be fixed.
Already have a report and want a second opinion? Leave Andrei a note through Claudiu.
Frequently asked questions
I get traffic but few leads. Could website performance be part of the problem?
It could be one of the causes. If the page loads slowly, buttons respond late or the form jumps around while someone fills it in, some visitors give up. But the problem may just as well be the offer, the message or the wrong traffic. Check Core Web Vitals on your lead pages first, then compare with where people drop off.
What is a slow website costing me?
It can't be calculated from a technical score. For an estimate you need the page's traffic, its conversion rate, the average value of an order or lead and, ideally, a before-and-after comparison once a fix is in place. A performance review shows where the problem is; your business data shows how much it matters.
Do I need a new website, or can targeted fixes help?
It depends on the cause. Many problems come from things that can be fixed on their own: oversized images, unnecessary scripts, fonts or a slow server. Others are built into the platform the site runs on and need bigger changes. A diagnosis of your real pages tells you which situation you're in before you decide.
Why does my website feel fine on my computer but slow for visitors?
You probably open it on a powerful computer, on a good connection, with the pages already cached in your browser. Many visitors arrive on less powerful phones, on mobile data, for the first time. Chrome's real-visitor data shows their experience, not yours.
What's the difference between PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console?
PageSpeed Insights looks at one address: it shows that page's real-visitor data, if there is any, plus a simulated test with recommendations. Search Console groups the pages of your site and shows which groups have Core Web Vitals problems over time. Use them together: Search Console to see where, PageSpeed Insights to find out why.
Do I need a score of 100 to do well in Google?
No. The 0 to 100 score comes from the simulated test and isn't what Google uses for ranking. What matters is that real visitors have a good experience, which means passing the Core Web Vitals thresholds on real-visitor data. Beyond that, content and relevance carry far more weight.