What does page speed optimisation actually involve?
Page speed optimisation is the practice of making your website load as quickly as possible for every visitor. It is not a single button you can press but rather a collection of thoughtful techniques and best practices. The primary goal is to improve the user experience by dramatically reducing the time it takes for someone to see and interact with your page content. A fast website feels professional and respects the user's time.
The process involves several key actions. This includes compressing images so they maintain high quality but have a much smaller file size. It also means streamlining the website's code by removing unnecessary characters and comments from CSS and JavaScript files. Another important part is ensuring assets load in an intelligent order so the most critical content appears on screen almost instantly even while other parts of the page are still loading in the background.
How does a slow website hurt my business?
A slow website is frustrating for users and that frustration has a direct impact on your business. People are incredibly impatient online. If a page takes more than a few seconds to load a significant number of visitors will simply leave before they ever see what you have to offer. This is known as a 'bounce' and it represents a lost opportunity and a poor first impression of your brand.
This negative user behaviour sends signals to search engines like Google that your site is not providing a good experience which can lower your search rankings over time. Beyond SEO the business metrics suffer directly. Slower sites consistently have lower conversion rates because every extra second of loading time is another chance for a potential customer to abandon their shopping cart or enquiry form.
Google's Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics used to measure a site's overall user experience and page speed is a critical component. In short a fast well performing website is rewarded with better visibility and happier users who are more likely to become customers.
Can a Webflow website be truly fast?
Yes absolutely. Webflow as a platform is built for exceptional performance. It outputs clean semantic code and utilises a world class global hosting network powered by Amazon Web Services and Fastly to deliver your content quickly to visitors anywhere in the world. It provides the perfect technical foundation for an incredibly fast website.
However the platform is only one part of the equation. A website's final speed depends heavily on how it is built and the expertise of the developer. An experienced professional knows how to leverage Webflow's powerful features while avoiding common performance pitfalls. The fastest platform in the world can still be slowed down by poor development practices so the quality of the build is what truly matters.
What are the biggest mistakes that slow down a website build?
The most common culprit by far is using large unoptimised images. A high resolution photo taken on a modern camera can be several megabytes in size which takes a very long time to download on an average internet connection. Properly compressing resizing and choosing the right format for images is often the single most effective way to improve a site's speed.
Another frequent issue is loading too many resources all at once when the page first opens. This can include using lots of different custom fonts or font weights each of which must be downloaded by the browser. Heavy animations complex videos set to autoplay or an excessive number of third party scripts for things like analytics or chatbots can also add significant loading time bogging down the user's device.
How does Tahi Studio build websites with performance in mind from the start?
At Tahi Studio we believe a fast website is a fundamental requirement not an optional extra. Performance is baked into our development process from the very beginning. We do not build a beautiful site and then try to make it fast later. We build a beautiful fast site from the ground up where design and performance work together.
This approach means we make smart performance focused decisions at every single stage of a project. We meticulously optimise every asset we use from images and fonts to custom Lottie animations. We write clean efficient code following proven best practices and we strategically load elements so that the most important content appears instantly for the user.
Our holistic process ensures your digital presence is built on a solid high performance foundation that provides an exceptional user experience and supports your long term business goals. To see how our commitment to quality extends across all our offerings you can explore our services page.
