How fast should a small business website be?

The short answer

Aim for a page whose main content appears within 2.5 seconds, that responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds and that does not jump around while it loads. Those are the “good” targets Google publishes for its Core Web Vitals, and they are a sensible goal for any business website.

What the three targets mean

Google measures three things about how a page feels to use. For each, it gives a “good” threshold.

• Loading (Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP): how long until the biggest thing on the screen, usually a main image or heading, has appeared. Google recommends this happens within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
• Responsiveness (Interaction to Next Paint, or INP): how quickly the page reacts when someone taps or clicks. Google recommends 200 milliseconds or less.
• Visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS): how much the page jumps around as it loads, for example a button moving just as you tap it. Google recommends a score of 0.1 or less.

Google suggests measuring these at the 75th percentile of page loads, which means the target should be met for most of your visitors, not just the fastest connections.

Why speed matters to a local business

Most people look up a business on their phone, often on a mobile connection. A page that is slow to show your phone number or opening hours costs you enquiries, because the next business is one tap away. Google also uses page experience as one of many signals, so speed supports your search visibility, though it is no guarantee of ranking.

How to check your own site

1. Open Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool and enter your page address.
2. Look at the mobile results first, since most visitors are on phones.
3. Check the three measures above, and the list of suggestions underneath.
4. Test your most important pages: the home page, your main service page and your contact page.

Results vary a little each time you test, so run it two or three times and look at the pattern.

What usually makes sites slow

• Large images that were never resized or compressed.
• Too many scripts and plug-ins, including some you no longer use.
• Fonts and files that load in the wrong order.
• Slow hosting.
• Page builders and themes that add code to every page.

When to fix and when to rebuild

Resizing images and removing unused scripts often helps a lot. If the site is slow because of how it is built, tuning only goes so far. Our guide to the signs your website needs a rebuild explains how to tell the difference.

If you would like help, our website speed optimisation service starts with a test of your site and a written list of what to change.