Speed audit
Where the seconds actually go, measured and ranked by impact. You get the list and the order to fix it, whether we do the work or not.
Website Speed Optimisation
Speed is the first thing a visitor feels.
Before your design registers or a single word is read, the load time has already made an impression. A slow site makes a good business feel second rate. We make sites feel instant, and the proof is the page you are reading.
Slow is expensive, even when everything else is right.
Speed is a ranking signal for Google and a trust signal for humans, and it decays quietly: one more plugin, one more tracking script, one more oversized hero image. We will not lecture you with a score we typed ourselves. Open Lighthouse and test this page, motion and all. That is the standard your site should be held to.
- Takes seconds to show anything
- Layout jumps while loading
- Sluggish on a real phone
- Taps that respond late
- Feels cheaper than you are
Most slow sites were built slow. Ours are engineered fast.
The typical business site is a theme, a page builder and a stack of plugins, each shipping its own scripts and styles to every visitor on every page. It was never designed as one thing, so it performs like a pile of parts. An engineered site has a budget for every byte, and it shows.
The template build
- Theme weight you cannot remove
- One plugin per problem, one script per plugin
- Caching bolted on to hide the load
- Slower with every update
You, with Igloo
- Only the code the page needs
- Self-hosted fonts, zero layout shift
- Images sized for the screen they meet
- Fast on launch day, fast next year
Why is my website so slow?
Almost never the server. The usual culprits, in the order we find them: render-blocking libraries that must download and run before anything paints, themes and page builders shipping their whole feature list to every visitor, images uploaded straight from the camera, fonts pulled from a third party that stall the text, and a tail of tracking scripts nobody remembers adding. Each one costs a slice of a second. Together they are the difference between instant and eventually.
The fix depends on the bones. If the build is sound, we remove the weight: strip the blocking libraries, self-host the fonts with metric-matched fallbacks so nothing shifts, rebuild the images in modern formats, and put every script on a budget it must justify. If the platform itself is the weight, tuning has a ceiling, and the honest answer is a leaner stack. That is exactly what our WordPress to Astro migration service exists for. We made that move on our own business, Spruce, and retired a whole WordPress install with every URL redirected.
We fix the causes, not the symptoms.
Caching plugins hide weight. We remove it. This is the work, roughly in the order it pays.
Render-blocking cleanup
The libraries and stylesheets holding the first paint hostage get removed, deferred or replaced with lighter code that does the same job.
Image optimisation
Modern formats, honest dimensions and lazy loading, with the hero image prioritised so the page appears at once, not in stages.
Font strategy
Self-hosted fonts with metric-matched fallbacks, so the text is readable immediately and nothing jumps when the real face arrives.
JavaScript budgets
Every script justifies its bytes or it goes, including the third party ones. The budget is enforced on every build, not audited once a year.
Rebuild for speed
When tuning cannot win, we rebuild on a lean stack where speed is a requirement from the first wireframe. That is our web design service, with performance baked in.
Core Web Vitals for NZ businesses.
Core Web Vitals are Google’s three measurements of how a page feels to a real visitor, reported in Google Search Console from real Chrome users. They cannot be gamed by a lab test. Green across all three is the goal, and every fix above maps to one of them. New to the acronyms? We explain Core Web Vitals, explained.
Largest Contentful Paint
How long until the main content appears. Slow LCP is usually a heavy hero image, a render-blocking script, or a server that thinks too long before answering.
Interaction to Next Paint
How quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. Long tasks from heavy JavaScript are the usual cause, which is exactly why we budget it.
Cumulative Layout Shift
How much the page jumps around while loading. Unsized images, injected banners and late-loading fonts cause it. Fixable, permanently.
Will speed actually improve my Google rankings?
Honest answer: yes, but not the way it is usually sold. Core Web Vitals are a confirmed ranking signal, and a modest one. The bigger effect is indirect. A fast site gets crawled more efficiently, keeps visitors reading instead of bouncing back to the results, and converts more of the clicks you already earn. Speed multiplies the SEO work. It does not replace it.
That is why we treat performance as one layer of our SEO services rather than a trick on its own. Fix the speed and every ranking you win is worth more, because the visitors who arrive actually stay.
Carve. Build. Weather.
One method, three moves. Speed is won in the diagnosis and held in the habits.
01
Carve the weight
We measure where the seconds go and rank every fix by impact. No guessing, and no rebuilding what only needs tuning.
02
Build the fixes
Blocking code removed, fonts self-hosted, images rebuilt, scripts put on a budget. Engineering, not a settings page.
03
Weather the drift
Speed decays as sites grow. We monitor Core Web Vitals after launch so the scores hold next year, not just next week.
Speed is engineered, not installed.
There is no magic plugin on this list. These are the tools and disciplines we use to make pages fast, and to keep them that way after launch.
- 01 Astro Lean, fast front ends without unnecessary JavaScript.
- 02 Vercel Fast global delivery and production deployment.
- 03 Cloudflare DNS, caching, redirects and a speed and security layer.
- 04 Image optimisation WebP and AVIF, correct sizing, lazy loading and responsive images.
- 05 JavaScript control Only shipping the code the page actually needs.
- 06 Animation optimisation Motion that feels premium without killing mobile performance.
- 07 Core Web Vitals LCP, CLS, INP and real mobile usability.
- 08 Lighthouse testing Performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO checks on every build.
- 09 Mobile-first build discipline Designing rich pages that still load quickly on phones.
- 10 Analytics without bloat Tracking that does not drag the site down.
7 figureswe grew our own brand to, on sites built this fast
WP Engineto Astro: Spruce migrated in-house, every URL redirected
Nowrun this page through Lighthouse, that is the standard
Speed never works alone.
No surprise invoices.
Nobody should have to book a call just to hear what speed work costs. These are the ranges it usually lands in. Your figure depends on what the audit finds, and we agree it in writing before we start.
Speed audit
from $900
about 1 week
Where the seconds go, ranked by impact. Yours to act on with us or without us.
Speed tune-up
$2.5k to $6k
2 to 4 weeks
Blocking code removed, images and fonts rebuilt, scripts budgeted. Core Web Vitals pushed to green where the platform allows.
Rebuild for speed
from $8k
4 to 8 weeks
A lean rebuild, or a migration off the platform holding you back. The ceiling removed, permanently.
Indicative ranges, not a quote. We scope the exact number with you up front, in writing, before anything begins.
The things people ask first.
Why is my website slow even on good hosting?
Because hosting is rarely the problem. Most slow sites are slow on the front end: heavy themes, page builder markup, plugin scripts, oversized images and fonts loaded from third parties. Faster hosting just delivers the same overweight page slightly sooner. We fix the page itself, which is where the seconds actually live.
What Lighthouse or Core Web Vitals score should I aim for?
Green across all three Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console is the target that matters, because it comes from real visitors. Lighthouse is a lab test and a useful gauge: the closer to 100 the better. Rather than quote our own numbers, we invite you to run this page through Lighthouse and use the result as your benchmark.
Can you speed up my WordPress site without rebuilding it?
Often, yes. Image compression, font fixes, script deferral and culling unused plugins can claw back a lot. But there is a ceiling: if the theme and page builder are the weight, tuning only goes so far. We will tell you honestly where that ceiling sits and what a migration to a leaner stack would change. We have made that move on our own business, so the advice comes from practice, not a brochure.
Does site speed really affect Google rankings?
Yes, honestly stated: it is one signal among many, not a magic lever. Core Web Vitals are a confirmed ranking factor, and speed also works indirectly, because visitors stay, read and convert instead of bouncing back to the results. Speed will not rescue weak content, but it quietly compounds everything else you do.
How much does website speed optimisation cost?
It depends on whether your site needs tuning or rebuilding, and the audit tells you which one you are in. Tuning an existing site usually lands in the low thousands. A full rebuild costs more but removes the ceiling entirely. The indicative ranges are on this page, and we agree the exact figure in writing before we start.
Let’s make it feel instant.
Every day a site stays slow, warm interest quietly goes cold in the load. Send us your web address and ask for a free speed teardown: we will show you where the seconds go, what each one costs you, and the order to fix them. No retainer pitch, no jargon. Just the plan.
Start a projector email hello@igloostudio.co.nz