A website usually loads slowly because the page is too heavy for the visitor’s device and connection, or your server is taking too long to send the first byte of data back. In practical terms, that slow feeling comes from large images and video, too much JavaScript, too many third-party widgets, or a hosting setup that is doing a lot of work on every page view without caching. Around Orlando and Central Florida, this shows up fast because a big chunk of your traffic is on mobile and often on cellular networks, so extra megabytes and extra requests turn into noticeable delays.
Common causes of slow load times
| Cause | What you notice | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Oversized images | Hero image loads late, page feels stuck | Resize to display size, use WebP or AVIF, compress, lazy load below the fold |
| Too much JavaScript | Buttons feel laggy, menu opens late, scrolling stutters | Remove unused scripts, defer non critical JS, split bundles, limit heavy sliders and page builders |
| Render blocking CSS and fonts | White screen before anything appears | Inline critical CSS, load the rest later, limit web font families and weights |
| Slow server response | Everything starts late even on fast Wi-Fi | Add full page caching, reduce plugin bloat, tune database queries, use faster hosting |
| Too many third party tools | Random slowdowns, especially on mobile | Audit chat widgets, tracking tags, heatmaps, embedded maps, and keep only what pays for itself |
| Redirects and heavy pages | Extra delay before landing page appears | Fix redirect chains, avoid loading giant libraries sitewide, keep pages focused |
What “fast” means in plain numbers
Google’s user experience benchmarks focus on Core Web Vitals. A solid target is Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. Since March 12, 2024, INP replaced the older FID metric, so interactivity issues often trace back to JavaScript and third party scripts, not just image size.
How to diagnose it quickly
- Test your homepage and one service page in PageSpeed Insights on mobile, then look at what is driving LCP and INP.
- Open Chrome DevTools, check the Network waterfall, and identify the largest files and the requests that block first paint.
- Check hosting and caching, slow Time to First Byte usually points to server, plugins, or database work.
- Temporarily disable non essential third party scripts to see which one is causing the biggest drag.
If your site is on WordPress and it feels slow even after image cleanup, the bottleneck is often theme or plugin weight and missing caching, and that is the kind of performance work we bake into our web design and rebuild projects so the site feels quick on phones, not just on office Wi-Fi.
If you want a simple way to connect speed issues to the metrics you see in Search Console and PageSpeed Insights, our Core Web Vitals FAQ breaks down what each number means and what typically moves it.
