Page Speed for New Websites: Load Fast From Launch Day

Speed Is Not Optional

Every second your website takes to load costs you:

Visitors: 53% of mobile users leave after three seconds
Revenue: Amazon found that every 100ms of latency cost 1% in sales
Rankings: Google uses Core Web Vitals (including speed) as ranking factors

A new website has no excuse for being slow. Get it right from the start.

Measuring Your Page Speed

Google PageSpeed Insights

Visit pagespeed.web.dev and enter your URL. You'll get:

A performance score (0–100)
Core Web Vitals metrics
Specific recommendations for improvement

Core Web Vitals Explained

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How long until the main content is visible. Target: under 2.5 seconds.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint): How responsive your page is to user input. Target: under 200 milliseconds.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How much the page layout shifts during loading. Target: under 0.1.

Other Testing Tools

GTmetrix — Detailed performance analysis with waterfall charts
WebPageTest — Advanced testing from multiple locations
Chrome DevTools — Built into your browser for real-time analysis

Image Optimization

Images are usually the biggest files on a webpage. Optimize them aggressively:

Use Modern Formats

WebP — 25-35% smaller than JPEG at equivalent quality. Supported by all modern browsers.
AVIF — Even smaller than WebP but less universally supported. Use with WebP fallback.

Compress Before Uploading

Use tools like:

Squoosh.app — Google's free image compression tool
TinyPNG — Batch compression for PNG and JPEG
ImageOptim — Desktop app for Mac

Specify Dimensions

Always include width and height attributes on image tags. This prevents layout shifts (improving CLS).

Lazy Load Images

Only load images when they scroll into view. Most modern browsers support native lazy loading:

<img src="photo.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Description">

Responsive Images

Serve different image sizes based on the viewer's screen:

<img srcset="photo-400.webp 400w, photo-800.webp 800w, photo-1200.webp 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 400px, 800px" src="photo-800.webp" alt="Description">

Minimize CSS and JavaScript

Remove Unused Code

New websites built with frameworks or templates often include CSS and JavaScript for features you don't use. Audit and remove what's unnecessary.

Minify Files

Minification removes whitespace, comments, and shortens variable names:

Use build tools like Vite, Webpack, or esbuild
Most website builders handle this automatically

Defer Non-Critical JavaScript

Scripts that don't affect the initial page load should use the defer or async attribute:

<script src="analytics.js" defer></script>

Critical CSS

Inline the CSS needed for above-the-fold content directly in the HTML. Load the rest asynchronously.

Hosting and Server Optimization

Choose Fast Hosting

Your hosting provider directly impacts speed. For new brands:

Static hosts (Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages) are extremely fast
Managed WordPress hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine) are optimized for WordPress
Avoid the cheapest shared hosting plans — they're usually slow

Use a CDN

A CDN serves your content from servers closest to the visitor. Cloudflare's free plan includes CDN functionality.

Enable Compression

Gzip or Brotli compression reduces file sizes during transfer. Most modern hosts and CDNs enable this by default.

Enable Browser Caching

Set cache headers so returning visitors load assets from their browser cache instead of downloading them again.

Font Optimization

Custom fonts can significantly slow page loads:

Limit font weights — Load only the weights you use (e.g., 400 and 700)
Use font-display: swap — Shows text immediately with a fallback font while the custom font loads
Prefer variable fonts — One file covers multiple weights
Self-host fonts — Faster than loading from Google Fonts in many cases

Quick Wins for Maximum Impact

If you're overwhelmed, focus on these five changes for the biggest speed improvement:

Compress and convert images to WebP
Enable a CDN (Cloudflare free tier)
Lazy load images below the fold
Defer non-critical JavaScript
Choose fast hosting

These five optimizations alone can take a slow site from a 40 PageSpeed score to 80+.

Your Page Speed Checklist

[ ] PageSpeed Insights score above 90
[ ] All Core Web Vitals in "Good" range
[ ] Images optimized (WebP, compressed, lazy loaded)
[ ] CSS and JavaScript minified
[ ] Non-critical scripts deferred
[ ] CDN enabled
[ ] Compression enabled (Gzip or Brotli)
[ ] Browser caching configured
[ ] Fonts optimized
[ ] Tested on mobile and desktop

A fast website starts with the right foundation. Use BrandScout to secure your domain, then build a site that loads in under two seconds.