Ask David! Question
My website seems to be loading fast, at least for me. I checked it on desktop and mobile. But I can’t get my website to score all in green on PageSpeed Insights. I think it is the website builder I am using. So that’s why I am thinking about recreating my website on UltimateWB. Is this something I should care about? Should I care about my website’s performance scores on PageSpeed Insights even if it feels like my website is loading fast?
David’s Answer
Yes, I would pay attention to your PageSpeed Insights results even if your website feels fast when you visit it.
But I wouldn’t focus on getting a particular score just for the sake of seeing a higher number or turning everything green.
The useful part of PageSpeed Insights is that it can help you find performance problems that you may not notice yourself.
Your computer, phone, internet connection, browser, and location can all affect how your website performs. Your visitors may be using completely different devices and connections.
A website can also feel fast while still having problems with images, JavaScript, rendering, responsiveness, or visual stability.
So the question isn’t simply, “Can I get a green score?”
The better question is, “Are there performance problems on my website that I should fix?”
Here’s why I would check.
1. PageSpeed and SEO
Google considers page experience as part of its search systems, and Core Web Vitals are among the performance signals Google recommends website owners pay attention to.
However, a PageSpeed Insights score is not a Google ranking score.
A page with a score of 100 does not automatically outrank a page with a score of 70. Google uses many factors when determining search rankings, and Google says that good Core Web Vitals do not guarantee good rankings.
PageSpeed Insights is useful because it can show you problems that may affect the experience people have on your website.
For example, it may identify a large image that delays the main content, JavaScript that affects responsiveness, or other resources that make the page do more work than necessary.
So I wouldn’t try to improve your PageSpeed score simply because you think Google will reward the number.
I’d use it to identify and fix actual performance problems.
Related: What’s the Best Website Builder for SEO?
2. Mobile Performance Matters More Than You Think
Your website might load quickly on a high-speed desktop connection, but that doesn’t mean every visitor will have the same experience.
Mobile devices have different hardware, screen sizes, and processing capabilities. Visitors may also be using different network connections.
A page that feels very fast on your desktop computer can take longer to process and display on a phone.
That’s why PageSpeed Insights provides separate mobile and desktop testing.
If you care about website performance, test both.
3. First Impressions Count
People don’t want to wait around for a website to become usable.
Performance isn’t just about the time until something first appears on the screen. A page can also feel slow if content moves around while loading or if buttons and other controls don’t respond quickly.
For example, imagine that a visitor starts reading a page and an image suddenly loads above the text, moving everything down the screen.
Or the visitor taps a menu or button and has to wait for the page to respond.
The website may not seem “slow” in the traditional sense, but the experience can still be frustrating.
Good performance means more than simply getting the first part of a webpage onto the screen quickly.
4. Better Performance Can Help Conversions
Performance can also affect what visitors do on your website.
If you are trying to get visitors to purchase something, fill out a form, sign up for an account, contact you, or take another action, you don’t want unnecessary delays getting in the way.
Research has found a relationship between website performance and conversion rates. A 2008 Aberdeen Group study of more than 160 organizations reported that an additional one-second delay in response time was associated with a 7% decline in conversions.
That is a long time ago, right?! But, something to think about.
The broader point is straightforward: unnecessary delays can cost you visitors and conversions.
5. Core Web Vitals and User Experience
PageSpeed Insights also reports Google’s Core Web Vitals.
The current Core Web Vitals are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures responsiveness.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability.
Google currently recommends an LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, an INP below 200 milliseconds, and a CLS of 0.1 or less. (Google’s Core Web Vitals documentation)
You may see older articles referring to First Input Delay (FID) instead of INP. Google replaced FID with INP as a Core Web Vital in March 2024.
These measurements cover different parts of the visitor experience.
A page might display its main content quickly but respond slowly when someone interacts with it.
Another page might respond quickly but have elements jumping around while it loads.
Looking at the individual Core Web Vitals can therefore tell you more than simply looking at the overall PageSpeed score.
6. Competitive Advantage
Your competitors are also trying to provide a good experience for their visitors.
If two websites offer similar products or services, performance can be one of the factors that affects the visitor’s experience.
A website that loads and responds efficiently gives visitors less reason to wait around or leave because of performance problems.
This doesn’t mean that the website with the higher PageSpeed score automatically wins in Google. There are many factors involved in search rankings, and many factors involved in whether someone chooses one company over another.
But if you can provide the same functionality without unnecessary code, resources, or delays, there is no good reason to make your visitors deal with those extra problems.
7. Your Website Builder Can Affect Performance
This brings us back to the question in the Ask David! submission: could the website builder be the reason your website isn’t performing as well as you want?
Yes, it can be.
The website builder you use determines much of the code, scripts, styles, and other resources that make up your pages.
Read: What is the best CMS for fast loading websites?
Some website builders generate more code and load more resources than others. That doesn’t automatically mean every website built with them will be slow, but it can give the browser more work to do.
The underlying code matters.
A website builder that produces clean, efficient code gives you a better starting point for building a fast website.
That’s one of the reasons UltimateWB is built with performance in mind.
The UltimateWB website itself is built on UltimateWB, and you can test the actual pages yourself with PageSpeed Insights.
Read: Valid HTML Matters: How Clean Code Boosts SEO, Accessibility, and Trust
Should You Rebuild Your Website?
If your only reason for considering a different website builder is that you don’t have a perfect PageSpeed Insights score, I wouldn’t make the decision based on the score alone.
Look at why your website is receiving that score.
If the problems are caused by large images or other things you can easily fix yourself, you may not need to rebuild anything.
But if the website builder is generating unnecessary code, loading resources you don’t need, or otherwise making performance optimization difficult, then the platform itself may be part of the problem.
If you’re already considering rebuilding your website, you can build pages with UltimateWB and test the actual results yourself.
That gives you something concrete to compare.
Would you like help analyzing or improving your website’s PageSpeed score? Let’s discuss!
The UltimateWB website builder, with its sleek coding and backend, makes it a lot easier to earn top scores on PageSpeed Insights. Are you ready to design & build your own website? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.
Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.