\Website speed affects both user experience and SEO. A slow website can make it harder for visitors to navigate your site and may contribute to visitors leaving before the page finishes loading.
Google also considers page experience and performance signals when evaluating webpages.
Why does website speed matter?
When a page loads quickly, visitors can access your content sooner and navigate your website more easily.
A slow page can happen when a page contains too many large resources, such as images, videos, custom fonts, or scripts.
Website speed is only one part of SEO. A fast website does not automatically rank higher than a slower website with more relevant and useful content.
What can make a website slow?
Common causes include:
- Large or unoptimized images
- Large video files
- Too many custom scripts
- Excessive third-party embeds
- Too many fonts or font variations
- Very large Notion database views
- Pages containing a large amount of content
The more resources a browser needs to load, the longer a page may take to become usable.
How to improve your Super site's speed
Optimize images
Use appropriately sized images and avoid uploading unnecessarily large files.
For example, if an image is displayed at a small size, you generally don't need to upload an extremely large version of the same image.
Limit unnecessary custom code
Custom CSS and JavaScript can add additional resources for the browser to process.
Only add custom code that your website actually needs, and remove code that is no longer being used.
Be careful with embeds
Third-party services, widgets, and embeds can add additional requests and scripts to your pages.
If an embed isn't necessary, consider removing it.
Keep database views manageable
Large Notion database views can increase the amount of content that needs to load on a page.
If a page contains a very large database, consider whether all of the items need to be displayed at once.
How to check your website speed
You can use tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to check your website's performance.
These tools can identify potential performance issues and provide recommendations for improving page loading and responsiveness.
Keep in mind that performance scores can vary depending on the device, network connection, and other factors. A score is useful for identifying potential issues, but it shouldn't be treated as the only measure of your website's quality.
Quick checklist
If your Super site feels slow, check:
The key takeaway
Website speed is part of providing a good experience for visitors and can contribute to your site's overall search performance.
Focus on keeping your pages useful and lightweight by optimizing large files, limiting unnecessary code and embeds, and avoiding unnecessarily large database views.