Site Speed (Website Speed).
Site Speed describes the loading speed of your website — how quickly content becomes visible and usable for visitors. It is a direct Google ranking factor and significantly influences user experience and conversion rate.
Site Speed (Website Speed) — Explained in Detail
Site Speed (website speed, page speed) encompasses all metrics that measure how quickly a webpage loads and becomes usable for visitors. The most important metrics: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint — when is the main content visible?), FCP (First Contentful Paint — when does the user see something?), TTFB (Time to First Byte — how quickly does the server respond?), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift — how stable is the page?), and INP (Interaction to Next Paint — how quickly does the page respond?). Google groups LCP, CLS, and INP as 'Core Web Vitals' — they are official ranking factors.
Why site speed is so important: According to Google, 53% of mobile users leave a page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Amazon has calculated that every 100ms delay costs 1% in revenue. For Swiss SMEs, this means: A slow website literally costs customers and revenue. Additionally, Google favors fast websites in rankings — especially on mobile devices. The difference between a 1-second and a 4-second website can mean 20–50% more organic traffic.
The biggest speed killers: Uncompressed images (PNG/JPEG instead of WebP/AVIF), too much JavaScript (WordPress plugins, tracking scripts, chat widgets), poor hosting (shared hosting instead of edge/CDN), no browser caching, and render-blocking CSS/JS. DLM Digital delivers websites with loading times under 1 second: through modern architecture (React + SSG), image optimization (automatic WebP/AVIF), code splitting, edge deployment, and minimal JavaScript.
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Premium WebsitesFrequently Asked Questions About Site Speed (Website Speed)
Target values: LCP under 2.5 seconds (ideally under 1.5s), FCP under 1.8 seconds, TTFB under 800ms, CLS under 0.1, INP under 200ms. For optimal user experience and SEO: Total loading time under 3 seconds on mobile devices. For comparison: The average WordPress website loads in 4–7 seconds. DLM Digital websites load in 0.5–1.5 seconds — that's the difference modern architecture makes.
Free tools: Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) — shows score and specific recommendations. GTmetrix (gtmetrix.com) — detailed waterfall analysis. WebPageTest (webpagetest.org) — professional analysis with different locations and devices. Google Search Console — Core Web Vitals Report with real user data. Tip: Always test on mobile too — mobile performance is crucial for Google rankings.
To a limited extent. Optimizations: Caching plugin (WP Rocket), image compression (ShortPixel, Imagify), CDN (Cloudflare), remove unnecessary plugins, update PHP version, better hosting (Kinsta, WP Engine instead of shared hosting). Realistic improvement: from 30/100 to 60–75/100 PageSpeed. For 90+/100, an architecture change is needed (headless, React/Next.js). WordPress's fundamental architecture limits the maximum achievable performance.
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