How Fast Should a Contractor Website Load? Speed Benchmarks That Matter

"My website seems slow." It's something we hear often. But what does "fast enough" actually mean? And how do you know if your site is underperforming?

Here are the benchmarks that matter and how to measure your site against them.

The Target: Under 3 Seconds

Your website should load in under 3 seconds on a typical connection. That's the threshold where user experience and conversion rates start to drop off significantly.

The research is clear:

• 40% of visitors abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load
• Each additional second of load time can reduce conversions by 7%
• Google uses page speed as a ranking factor

For Google Ads landing pages, aim even faster—under 2 seconds is ideal for maximizing ad quality scores.

What Google Measures: Core Web Vitals

Google doesn't just look at overall load time. They measure specific metrics called Core Web Vitals:

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

First Input Delay (FID): How long before visitors can interact with your page. Target: under 100 milliseconds.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): How much the page content jumps around as it loads. Target: under 0.1.

These metrics affect your search rankings. Sites that pass Core Web Vitals rank better, especially on mobile.

How to Test Your Website Speed

Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev): Free tool that tests both mobile and desktop performance. It shows your Core Web Vitals and gives specific recommendations.

GTmetrix (gtmetrix.com): More detailed analysis with waterfall charts showing what's slowing your site down.

Your actual phone: Load your website on your phone using cellular data (not WiFi). Time it. This gives you a realistic sense of the mobile experience.

What Slows Websites Down

Large, unoptimized images: The most common culprit. A single uncompressed photo can be 5MB or more—enough to make your entire site slow.

Too many third-party scripts: Chat widgets, analytics tools, social media embeds, and tracking pixels all add load time. Each script is another request the browser has to make.

Cheap hosting: Budget hosting often means shared servers that slow down during peak times. Your $5/month hosting might cost you more in lost leads.

Heavy themes or page builders: Some website templates and builders load massive amounts of code, even on simple pages.

No caching: Without caching, your server rebuilds pages from scratch for every visitor instead of serving pre-built versions.

Quick Wins for Speed Improvement

1. Optimize your images: Compress photos before uploading. Use modern formats like WebP. Aim for images under 200KB each.

2. Remove unused plugins and scripts: Audit what's actually running on your site. Remove anything you don't need.

3. Enable caching: Most hosting providers offer caching. Turn it on if it's available.

4. Lazy load images: Images below the fold should only load when visitors scroll to them, not all at once.

5. Consider your hosting: If your hosting is the bottleneck, upgrading can make a significant difference.

Speed Matters More Than You Think

For contractors and home service businesses, a slow website isn't just an annoyance—it's costing you money.

Think about it: someone's AC just broke. They search on their phone for HVAC repair. They click on your site, but it takes 5 seconds to load. They hit back and click on your competitor's site, which loads in 2 seconds. You just lost that customer.

Speed is especially critical if you're running Google Ads. Slow pages reduce your ad quality score, which means you pay more per click and your ads show less often.

Test your site today. If it's taking more than 3 seconds to load, you have an opportunity to improve.