Why Google Cares About Your Website's Performance (And Why You Should Too)
2025-07-22
Most Sites Are Still Too Slow (Especially in Minnesota)
If you own a business in Duluth or the Twin Ports area, you've probably heard at least one of these:
> "Our site looks great, that's what matters."
> "Speed doesn't really affect sales in our local market."
> "We're not Amazon, page speed isn't that important for Duluth businesses."
Your website's speed directly impacts your business - whether you're serving customers in Duluth, Superior, or anywhere in Minnesota. Google knows this. Your customers definitely know this.
Here's what's actually happening and why it matters for your business.
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What Google Actually Measures
Google uses something called Core Web Vitals to grade your website's performance. Think of it as their report card for user experience.
Three main things they track:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
What it measures:
How long it takes for your biggest piece of content to load... your hero image, main headline, whatever's most prominent.
Goal: Under 2.5 seconds.
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Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
What it measures:
How quickly your site responds when someone clicks a button, fills out a form, or taps something.
Goal: Under 200 milliseconds.
Note: This replaced First Input Delay in March 2024, and it's stricter. A lot of sites that were "passing" suddenly weren't.
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Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
What it measures:
How much your page jumps around while loading. You know when you're about to click something and an ad loads, shoving everything down? That.
Goal: Less than 0.1 shifts.
These aren't just tech metrics. They measure real frustration points that make people leave your site.
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The Business Reality
Here's where it gets interesting for business owners.
Website performance isn't just a technical thing... it's directly tied to your revenue.
The Numbers Don't Lie:
- 47% of customers expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds or less
- Amazon found that a 100-millisecond increase in page load time led to a 1% decrease in sales
- The BBC loses 10% of visitors for every additional second of load time
- 53% of users abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
Let's do quick math. If your site makes $100,000 a year and you improve load time by one second, studies show you could see a 2% conversion boost. That's $2,000 in extra revenue, every year, from making your site faster.
Multiply that by bigger numbers if you're doing more volume.
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Mobile Changes Everything
Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices now. Google knows this, so they grade your site based on mobile performance first.
Mobile users deal with:
- Slower processors
- Limited memory
- Spotty network connections
- Smaller screens (less patience)
If your site works great on your office computer but struggles on a phone, you're fighting an uphill battle in search results.
The target for mobile? 50 or fewer network requests. Every extra request adds delays that pile up fast on mobile networks.
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Why Google Made This a Ranking Factor
Google's job is to send users to websites that actually help them. If someone clicks your link from search results and immediately bounces because your site is slow, that's a bad experience Google doesn't want to repeat.
So they made page experience, including Core Web Vitals, a ranking factor.
Important nuance: Content still matters most. Google uses hundreds of ranking factors. Great performance won't push terrible content to the top, but poor performance can definitely hold great content back.
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Real Examples from Real Businesses
Swappie (refurbished phones): Improved their Core Web Vitals and saw a 23% faster load time, which led to a 42% increase in mobile revenue.
Groupe Renault: Found that improving LCP by 1 second decreased bounce rate by 14 percentage points and increased conversions by 13%.
Vodafone: A 31% improvement in LCP led to 8% more sales, 15% better lead rates, and 11% improvement in cart conversions.
These aren't tiny startups. These are big companies seeing real money from making their sites faster.
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Local Business Reality Check
Let's do quick math with a Duluth business example. If your local restaurant, retail shop, or service business website makes $50,000 a year online and you improve load time by one second, studies show you could see a 2% conversion boost. That's $1,000 in extra revenue annually from making your site faster.
For Twin Ports businesses competing with larger metro areas, every advantage matters.
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Current Standards (July 2025)
The performance bar keeps getting higher. When INP replaced First Input Delay in March 2024, nearly 600,000 websites went from "passing" to "failing" Core Web Vitals overnight.
Google has also introduced Engagement Reliability, which measures how consistently your interactive elements actually work across different devices.
The message is clear: users expect instant, smooth experiences, and the tolerance for anything less keeps shrinking.
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What This Means for Your Business
If you're just starting out: Don't stress about perfect scores, but pick a platform that gives you a fighting chance. Modern tools like Webflow, properly configured Shopify, or Next.js sites tend to perform better out of the box than bloated WordPress builds.
If you have an existing site: Use Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool to see where you stand. The Search Console Core Web Vitals report shows real user data, that's what actually affects your rankings.
If you're selling online: Speed matters even more. Faster checkout, product pages, and search results directly impact sales. Every 100ms improvement can boost conversions by 1%.
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Tools That Actually Help
- Google PageSpeed Insights: Free, shows your actual scores plus suggestions.
- Search Console Core Web Vitals Report: Real user data from people actually visiting your site.
- Squoosh.app: Compress images properly. Huge files kill load times.
- Cloudflare: CDN that can speed up any site, often dramatically.
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My Honest Take
I've built sites on everything from WordPress to custom Next.js applications. Here's what I've learned:
WordPress can be fast, but it usually isn't. Too many plugins, heavy themes, and cheap hosting add up to slow sites.
Webflow and modern Shopify tend to perform better by default, with less maintenance headache.
Custom builds give you complete control but require ongoing developer support.
The platform matters, but so do the basics: optimized images, clean code, and good hosting.
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Getting Started
Don't try to fix everything at once. Start with the biggest wins:
1. Check your current scores with PageSpeed Insights
2. Compress your images (WebP or AVIF formats, proper compression)
3. Review your hosting (cheap shared hosting often can't deliver fast experiences)
4. Consider your platform (if you're rebuilding anyway, pick something modern)
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The Bottom Line for Duluth Businesses
Google cares about website performance because users care about website performance. In a competitive market like the Twin Ports, where customers have plenty of options, a slow site isn't just a technical problem—it's a business problem.
Whether you're a Duluth restaurant competing with Superior establishments, or a Minnesota service business trying to reach the broader region, every second your site takes to load gives competitors an edge.
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Want to See How Your Duluth Business Site Measures Up?
If you're a Twin Ports business owner not sure how your site performs, or if slow loading is costing you local conversions, let's talk.
No jargon, no pressure. Just clear advice for your actual business.
Contact me here or email hello@asdf.design.