Keeping your site fast after launch

A site we hand over fast does not necessarily stay fast — speed erodes gradually as content gets added, and it is almost always one of three specific things.

Huge images

The single most common cause. Every image added after launch should be exported at the size it is actually displayed at, not the original camera or design-file resolution — a hero image saved at 4000px wide but shown at 800px makes the visitor download five times more data than the page needs.

Extra fonts

Adding a second or third typeface for a single page or campaign is an easy habit to fall into, and each one adds a render-blocking network request across the whole site if it is not scoped carefully. Stick to the typefaces the site launched with unless there is a real reason to add another.

Tracking scripts

Analytics tools, chat widgets and marketing pixels accumulate over time, and old ones rarely get removed once whatever campaign needed them has ended. A periodic audit — what is actually installed, and is it still used — is worth doing every few months.

If you would rather not track this yourself, ask about a performance check-in: a short periodic review that catches this drift before it shows up in your bounce rate.