If your website is slow, it usually causes two problems:
- People leave before they call, book, or fill out a form.
- Google and Google Ads have a weaker page to send traffic to.
The pricing packages include a custom website because a fast site gives your Local SEO and Google Ads a stronger foundation.
This chart shows the main point: slower pages lose more visitors.
Bounce Rate by Load Speed
Source: Colorlib, Site Speed Statistics.
Slow Sites Lose More Visitors
When a site is slow, more people leave.
Google and SOASTA also reported that 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load. See web.dev, Why Speed Matters.
Once a site gets past 5 seconds, the drop-off grows even more. That means a slow site can reduce the value of the traffic you already paid for or worked hard to earn.
If you are paying for Local SEO or Google Ads, part of the problem may be the website itself. You can get the click and still lose the lead if the page feels slow before your offer has a chance to work.
Slow Sites Also Make Google More Hesitant to Send You Traffic
- Google’s page experience documentation says, “Google’s core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a good page experience.” See Google Search Central, Understanding Page Experience in Google Search Results.
This does not mean a fast site automatically ranks first. Relevance still matters most. But when several businesses are competing for the same local searches, a slow site is at a disadvantage.
If three similar businesses are trying to rank for the same search, the slower site is often behind before the visitor even reads the offer.
If your site is slow, Google is more likely to favor the competing page that loads faster and works better for users.
It also affects Google Ads performance. If the landing page is slow, fewer visitors stay long enough to call, book, or fill out a form. That makes ad spend less efficient.
Real Example: 10.8 Seconds vs 1.5 Seconds
One example comes from one of my clients.
I updated the site from a lean Squarespace setup that still took 10.8 seconds to load on mobile to a custom-coded version that loads in 1.5 seconds.
Squarespace: 10.8 seconds
Custom build: 1.5 seconds
The result was about 86% less load time, or roughly 7x faster.
That kind of improvement helps in three simple ways:
- more people stay on the faster site
- the faster site is more likely to win organic visibility
- paid traffic is less likely to underperform because of page speed
How to Check Your Site Speed
If you want to check your own site, run it through Google PageSpeed Insights.
The three numbers I would pay the most attention to are:
- First Contentful Paint (FCP): how quickly the visitor sees the first real piece of content on the page. This is the first sign that the page is actually loading.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content becomes visible, such as the hero image, headline, or primary content block. This is one of the clearest indicators of whether the page is fast.
- Total Blocking Time (TBT): how much time the page spends too busy to respond well while loading. If this number is high, the site may look like it loaded but still feel frustrating when someone tries to tap, scroll, or interact.
Those three metrics tell a more useful story than the overall score by itself. For a local business site, you want people to see content quickly, reach the main message quickly, and interact without delay.
Why This Happens So Often on Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress
The platform name is not the whole issue. The real problem is usually what gets added on top of the page:
- bloated themes
- page builders
- heavy plugins or apps
- extra scripts for tracking, popups, chat tools, and animations
- large images and unnecessary code shipped to every visitor
All of that makes it harder to stay fast, especially on phones. Custom-coded sites have an advantage because they can be built around exactly what the business needs and nothing else.
Speed Is a Foundation, Not a Bonus
If you want better results from Local SEO or Google Ads, website speed should be part of the foundation:
- it helps visitors stay on the page
- it helps those visitors convert into leads
- it helps you earn more organic visibility instead of losing ground to faster sites
- it helps paid traffic from Google Ads land on a page that can convert
Google Ads and Local SEO work better on a strong website. If you are currently using Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress, it may be time to replace the foundation.
If you want a custom-built website that gives your Local SEO and Google Ads a stronger base, start here: Website Design for Local Businesses or Book My Free Strategy Call .