Slow websites kill business. According to Google's research, even small delays in page load time significantly reduce conversions and increase bounce rates. Here are the speed standards every website should meet.
How Fast Should a Website Load?
Modern websites should load in under 2 seconds, with the key metric being Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) hitting 2.5 seconds or faster. First Contentful Paint should occur within 1 second. Google treats speed as a ranking factor, and sites below these thresholds lose search visibility and conversions at scale.
Core Web Vitals Targets (Google Standards)
| Metric | Target | Good | Needs Work | Poor | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | LCP | Under 2.5s | Under 2.5s | 2.5-4.0s | Over 4.0s | | FCP | Under 1.8s | Under 1.8s | 1.8-3.0s | Over 3.0s | | CLS | Under 0.1 | Under 0.1 | 0.1-0.25 | Over 0.25 | | INP | Under 200ms | Under 200ms | 200-500ms | Over 500ms | | TTFB | Under 600ms | Under 600ms | 600-1800ms | Over 1800ms |
Speed by Device
Mobile (most important)
- Load time: Under 3 seconds on 4G
- LCP: Under 2.5 seconds
- Why: Users on cellular, battery-limited, distracted
Desktop
- Load time: Under 2 seconds
- LCP: Under 2 seconds
- Why: Faster connection, but users expect instant results
Tablet
- Load time: Under 2.5 seconds
- LCP: Under 2.5 seconds
Real User Data Impact
Speed directly impacts business:
| Load Time | Bounce Rate | Conversion Rate | Organic Traffic | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1-2 seconds | 24% | 3.2% | Baseline (100%) | | 3 seconds | 35% | 2.8% | -12% traffic | | 5 seconds | 44% | 2.2% | -25% traffic | | 8 seconds | 53% | 1.5% | -40% traffic | | 10+ seconds | 66% | 1.0% | -50% traffic |
Translation: Every second above 2s costs 5-10% of conversions.
Speed by Industry
Benchmarks vary:
| Industry | Avg. Load Time | Target | Impact | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | E-commerce | 3.1s | Under 2s | 1% speed = 2% revenue | | News/Media | 2.8s | Under 2s | 1s delay = 4% traffic | | SaaS | 2.5s | Under 2s | Critical for signup | | Corporate | 3.5s | Under 2.5s | Brand perception | | WordPress | 4.2s | Under 2s | Needs optimization |
Why Speed Standards Exist
Google's Core Web Vitals measure real user experience:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) Under 2.5s
- Measures: When main content is visible
- User perception: "Is the page loading?"
- Fix: Optimize images, reduce TTFB, defer JS
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) Under 0.1
- Measures: Page stability
- User perception: "Does this page jump around?"
- Fix: Set image dimensions, reserve ad space
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) Under 200ms
- Measures: Responsiveness to clicks
- User perception: "Is this responsive?"
- Fix: Optimize JavaScript, break up long tasks
TTFB (Time to First Byte) Under 600ms
- Measures: Server response speed
- User perception: Nothing visible yet
- Fix: Better hosting, CDN, caching
Speed Testing Tools
Free tools
- PageSpeed Insights (official Google)
- WebPageTest (detailed waterfall)
- GTmetrix (actionable fixes)
- Chrome DevTools (local debugging)
Paid tools
- Lighthouse CI (automated monitoring)
- Speedcurve (team collaboration)
- Synthetic Monitoring (continuous testing)
Speed Optimization Priority
If your site is slow, fix in this order:
1. Images (40-50% of page weight)
- Compress aggressively
- Use WebP/AVIF formats
- Lazy load below-fold images
- Typical improvement: 1-2 seconds
2. Third-party scripts (20-30% impact)
- Defer non-critical JS
- Asynchronously load ads, analytics
- Typical improvement: 0.5-1 second
3. Server response (TTFB) (10-20% impact)
- Upgrade hosting
- Implement caching
- Use CDN
- Typical improvement: 0.5-1 second
4. CSS/JavaScript (10-15% impact)
- Minify code
- Remove unused CSS
- Code splitting
- Typical improvement: 0.2-0.5 seconds
Common Speed Problems by Technology
WordPress
- Problem: Lazy-loading plugin conflicts, slow themes
- Fix: Caching plugin, theme audit, image optimization
- Typical improvement: 3x faster
React SPAs
- Problem: Large bundle, client-side rendering
- Fix: Code splitting, migrate to Next.js, lazy load routes
- Typical improvement: 2-3x faster
Legacy PHP
- Problem: No caching, database-heavy queries
- Fix: Implement caching, query optimization, CDN
- Typical improvement: 2-4x faster
E-commerce
- Problem: Product images, dynamic content
- Fix: Image optimization, product image lazy loading, caching
- Typical improvement: 2-3x faster
Speed Test Your Site Now
- Go to PageSpeed Insights
- Enter your domain
- Check your LCP, CLS, INP scores
- Identify slowest resource (usually images)
- Implement fix number 1 from optimization list
Most sites can improve by 1-2 seconds with image optimization alone.
Need professional speed optimization? Acefina performs free Core Web Vitals audits and typically improves load time by 50-70%.