Performance & Technical Guide for Website Building
Most of what makes a website work is invisible. Your customers never see it. They just feel the result. A page that opens fast feels professional. A page that hangs, shows a security warning, or never turns up in search quietly costs you the customer before they have even formed an opinion of you.
of the technical checks failed. The strongest foundation we measured.
Strong, but not finished: only 5% of sites passed everything, and exactly half failed three or more checks.
We ran an automated technical check on 100 small-business websites to see how solid that invisible foundation really is. This is the plumbing and wiring of a website: how fast it loads, whether it is properly secured, and how easy it is for search engines to find and read. It is the most technical topic in this series, so here is the deal up front. Some of these fixes you can do yourself in an afternoon. Some are best handed to whoever built your site. We will be clear about which is which every time.
The good news first, and there is a lot of it. Only 12% of the technical checks failed, which makes this the strongest area in the whole series. The typical site passed about 87% of the checks that applied to it, and the best site passed every single one. Modern website builders deserve the credit. They handle a lot of this for you automatically, so most owners start from a good place.
But "good" is not "done." Only 5% of sites passed everything, so a perfect result was rare. And 50% of sites failed three or more checks, exactly half. So while the foundation is mostly solid, the typical site still has a few cracks: an oversized image dragging down the load time, a missing font setting that makes text flash invisible, a sitemap search engines cannot find. None are dramatic. All quietly cost you speed, trust, or visibility. Let us walk through them.
How we measured this
Each percentage below is out of the sites where that particular check actually applied, not always all 100. This matters, because many of these checks only make sense for some sites. A "lazy loading" check only applies to sites with images further down the page. A sitemap check only applies to sites that have a sitemap. So the percentages are a fair signal of how common each problem is, not a hard law, and when a check applied to only a handful of sites we will say so.
One note on what we did not measure. We did not capture raw speed scores like the ones Google gives you. So nothing here claims your site scored a certain number for speed. Instead we studied the underlying good habits that make a site fast. Fix those and the speed scores tend to follow. The examples are the real notes from the check, with the businesses kept anonymous.
Loading speed: the small habits that make pages feel fast
Speed is not one big switch. It is a stack of small habits, and a few of these were the most common failures in the whole study. When a page feels slow, customers do not wait politely. They hit the back button and try the next business on the list.
Lower images that wait their turn (lazy loading)
This was the single most common technical problem in the whole study. 59% of the sites with images further down the page failed it. "Lazy loading" simply means the browser only loads those lower images when the visitor scrolls near them, instead of forcing every photo on the page to download the moment it opens. On one site, only a quarter of the images were set up this way. On another, none of them were, so every photo loaded at once and the top of the page had to wait.
Why it matters: The first few seconds decide everything. If the top of your page is stuck waiting on photos a visitor cannot even see yet, many leave before your headline appears. A faster first screen means more people stay long enough to call you.
How to fix it: In most modern builders this is on by default, or it is a single toggle in the image settings. Sites built on Frontpage lazy-load the images further down the page out of the box, so this one is handled for you. If your site was built by hand, it is a quick job for whoever built it. Leave it switched off only for the one big image at the very top, which you want to load right away.
Fonts that show your text right away
Half the sites using custom fonts (50%) were missing one small setting. A custom font is a typeface your site downloads so your text looks the way you designed it. While that font is downloading, the browser can either show your text straight away in a backup font and swap it in later, or hide the text until the custom font arrives. Without the right setting, many browsers hide it, so your words can stay invisible for a moment while the page loads.
Why it matters: This is the dreaded blank flash. A visitor lands and, for a moment, your headline and your offer are simply not there, just empty space. A blank page reads as a broken page, and customers do not stick around for broken.
How to fix it: This usually goes to whoever built your site, but it is a tiny change. If you loaded your fonts through your builder or a font service, there is often a "swap" or "display" setting you can flip yourself. Using standard system fonts removes the problem entirely and loads faster.
Images sized for the web, not straight off the camera
16% of sites, about one in six, served images far larger than the space they appear in. A photo off a phone can be thousands of pixels wide. If it only shows at the size of a postage stamp, the browser still downloads the giant version and shrinks it, wasting time for nothing. The check caught exactly this: one image shown at a small size but delivered many times larger than it needed to be.
where it shows
Why it matters: Oversized images are the most common reason a small-business page feels heavy, especially on phones using mobile data. A single bloated photo can add several seconds, and several seconds is plenty of time to lose a customer.
How to fix it: Before uploading, resize the photo to roughly the size it will show at. Most builders and free tools do this in a few clicks. A full-width banner rarely needs to be wider than about 2000 pixels. There is also a more advanced option that serves several sizes so each device grabs the one it needs, and that is best left to whoever built your site.
Broken images that never load at all
16% of sites, again about one in six, had at least one image that simply did not load, showing a blank box instead. A broken image usually means the photo was moved, renamed, or deleted while the page still points at the old spot.
Why it matters: Nothing says "this place is not looked after" like a broken photo where your product or your finished work should be. If it is your logo, you have lost your best first impression to a blank box.
How to fix it: This one is on you, and it is easy. Scroll every page of your own site watching for blank boxes, then re-upload the image or fix the link in your builder. Do this any time you reorganize your photos, because that is usually when images break.
Free consultation
Want a hand fixing yours?
Book a free 30-minute session and we'll go through your site together and rebuild your web presence, all before the call is over.
Security and the padlock that earns trust
Security is the one area where a problem is not subtle. A browser puts a bright "Not Secure" warning right next to your address, and that scares customers off instantly. The good news: this group was a real strength. Modern hosts hand out the security you need for free, often automatically.
A valid security certificate
Only 4% of sites failed this, and that is exactly what you want, because this is the big one. The padlock next to your site name means the connection is secure and your visitors' data is scrambled so it cannot be snooped on. A "security certificate" is the digital credential that makes the padlock work. The few failures were real: one site had no secure connection at all, and another had a certificate that browsers could not trust.
Why it matters: Without a valid certificate, browsers show a full-screen "Not Secure" warning. Most visitors will not click past it, and they should not. It also lowers your Google ranking. This is non-negotiable for any business taking inquiries.
How to fix it: Almost every modern host provides a free certificate automatically; every Frontpage site issues and renews HTTPS for you, so the padlock is there from day one. If yours is missing, expired, or showing an error, ask your host or builder to issue and install a valid one. It is usually a same-day fix and very often free.
Sending everyone to the secure version
A site can sometimes be reached at both an old, insecure address and the secure one. If someone follows the old address, they should be sent straight to the secure version automatically. 7% of sites had not set that up. Separately, 6% of sites had a secure page that still pulled in an item or two, an image, a font, or a script, over the old insecure connection, which browsers do not like.
Why it matters: If visitors land on the insecure version, they get the scary warning even though a perfectly good secure site sits right beside it. And even one insecure item can break the padlock, turning your reassuring page into one that warns "not fully secure." Customers do not read the fine print. They just see the padlock is gone.
How to fix it: Ask your host or builder to "force HTTPS," often a single checkbox, so everyone lands on the secure version no matter how they arrived. For the mixed items, ask them to switch anything still loading over the old insecure connection to the secure one. Both are quick jobs.
Annoyances that drive people straight off
Some problems do not slow your site or break security. They just irritate visitors until they leave. Both of these were surprisingly common, and both are entirely within your control.
No video or audio that plays on its own
14% of sites, about one in seven, had video or audio that started by itself when the page loaded. We have all been the victim: you open a page in a quiet office, and sound suddenly blares while you scramble for the mute button.
Why it matters: Sound that plays on its own is one of the fastest ways to make someone close your tab. It feels intrusive, it is embarrassing in public, and on a phone it eats data the visitor never agreed to spend. Even silent video can distract and slow the page.
How to fix it: In your builder, find the video or audio and turn off "autoplay," or set it to play only when someone taps it. Let the customer choose to start it. If you want some background motion, make sure it is muted and lightweight.
No pop-ups ambushing your visitors
6% of sites greeted visitors with a pop-up covering the page before they had read a single word. One site had two pop-ups stacked over the homepage at once, both blocking the page before the visitor could see anything.
Why it matters: A pop-up before a visitor has seen your offer is an interruption, not marketing. On a phone the close button is often tiny, so people just leave. You have asked for something before giving any reason to say yes.
How to fix it: If you use a pop-up, give the visitor a few seconds to land first, or show it only as they go to leave. Make the close button big and obvious, and never stack two pop-ups. On phones, consider skipping it for a simple offer that just sits on the page.
Helping search engines read your site
This is the part that decides whether you show up in Google at all. Search engines send out little programs that read websites to discover and understand your pages, and two small files quietly guide them. One tells them which parts of your site they may look at. The other is simply a list of all your pages, handed to search engines so they miss nothing.
Not accidentally blocking your own site
23% of sites, almost a quarter, had a settings file that was accidentally blocking things search engines need. This was the second most common problem in the whole study, and a quietly serious one. On one site, that file told Google not to look at the design and code that makes the page display, so Google saw a broken-looking version of the site.
Why it matters: If search engines cannot see your page the way a visitor does, they cannot judge it fairly, and your ranking suffers. In the worst cases this hides whole sections from search. You could do everything else right and still stay invisible because of one wrong setting.
How to fix it: Best handed over, but quick to check. Whoever built your site can review this file and remove any rule that blocks your design, your code, or pages you want found. The goal is a file that blocks only genuinely private areas, if anything at all.
A list of your pages that search engines can find
A handful of related checks make sure these two files exist and point to each other. 10% of sites had no page list (a "sitemap") at all, and another 13% had one that existed but was not pointed to from the settings file, so search engines were less likely to find it. A further 10% were missing or had an empty settings file, and a small 3% had one with lines search engines could not read. One check was a clean sweep worth celebrating: every site whose settings file applied had a real, working one rather than an error page.
Why it matters: A page list is how you make sure search engines find every page, including new ones, quickly. A list that exists but is not pointed to is like a map left in a drawer no one knows to open.
How to fix it: Most modern builders create and update this list for you, so first check whether yours already has one (often at your own address followed by /sitemap.xml). Every Frontpage site ships a correct sitemap and settings file automatically, kept in sync as you add or rename pages. If not, ask your builder to generate one and a basic settings file that lets search engines in and points to the list. This is a small, one-time setup that keeps paying off.
Keeping that list clean
Once the list exists, a few smaller checks make sure it is actually useful, and most sites did well. It should not be empty (only 2% failed), its addresses should be full and on your own domain (5% failed), and its pages should actually work (8% had at least one dead link, a page that no longer exists). On sites where the list was split into sections, 6% had a section that was broken or empty. And one more clean sweep: every site listed a "last updated" date on its pages, so none failed that one.
Why it matters: A page list full of dead links or missing pages teaches search engines to trust it less, which slows how well your real pages get found.
How to fix it: Because most of these lists are generated automatically, the fix is usually just to regenerate yours after you add, remove, or rename pages so it stays accurate. If yours was built by hand, pass these notes to whoever looks after it.
Set it and forget it
Put the technical stuff on autopilot
Sign up to Frontpage and let Autopilot look after your speed, your security, and your search settings. The fixes in this guide stay fixed, and you never have to think about them.
Helping Google show you off
There is a kind of hidden labeling you can add to a page that spells out, in a form search engines understand, what your business is: your name, your hours, your reviews, your social profiles. Done well, it powers those richer Google results with star ratings and opening hours. Problems here were small and rare, and a few of these checks ran on only a handful of sites, so read the percentages loosely.
The labeling should be valid (5% failed, where it was present but did not say what it described), and it should point to the right set of standard terms (only 2% failed). When a site uses more than one block of labeling, they should agree (12% of the few sites with more than one block did not). On the other side were the wins: every site that should have had this labeling did, and every social profile linked through it was done right.
Why it matters: Good labeling earns you a richer, more eye-catching listing in search, which means more clicks with no ad spend. Bad labeling mostly just gets ignored, so the risk is low and the upside is real.
How to fix it: Many builders and SEO add-ons handle this labeling for you once you fill in your business details, so the simplest fix is to complete those fields. To go further, hand the notes above to whoever built your site. This is firmly developer territory, so do not feel you need to touch any code yourself.
Small touches that quietly add up
A handful of remaining checks are minor on their own but easy to get right, and together they make a site feel cared for.
Links to other websites that open in a new tab
38% of sites, more than a third, had links to other websites that did not open in a new tab. When you link to another company's site, a supplier, a booking partner, your own social media, it is usually kinder to open it in a new tab so your own site stays put.
Why it matters: If an outside link replaces your page, the visitor has left your site, and many will not find their way back. A new tab keeps your site one click away while they look around.
How to fix it: In your builder, when you add a link to another website, switch on "open in new tab" for it. Keep your own internal links opening in the same tab, which is what people expect.
Image file names that describe the picture
11% of sites, about one in nine, uploaded images with the names cameras give them, like IMG_1234.jpg, instead of names that describe the picture. On one site, most of the images had names like that.
Why it matters: Search engines read image file names as a small clue about what the picture shows, which helps you appear in image search. "IMG_1234.jpg" tells Google nothing. "blue-velvet-armchair.jpg" tells it plenty.
How to fix it: Before uploading, rename the file to a few plain words describing it, separated by hyphens. It takes seconds and is entirely in your hands.
Pages Google is allowed to find, and forms that deliver
Two final checks were nearly clean but serious where they failed. 1% of sites had a hidden instruction telling search engines to leave a page out of results, and on one of them it was the homepage. That instruction is useful on a thank-you page but catastrophic on a homepage, because it can erase your business from Google. And 4% of sites had a form that looked normal but sent nothing anywhere: the visitor fills it in, hits send, sees nothing wrong, and the message simply vanishes.
Why it matters: A stray "do not show this page" instruction on a page you want found makes it invisible in search, and on a homepage it can wipe you off Google. A form with nowhere to send its messages is the worst kind of silent failure: a customer takes the time to reach out, believes they have contacted you, and you never receive a thing. Every one is a lead who thinks you ignored them.
How to fix it: Ask whoever built your site to confirm your important pages carry no hidden "do not show" instruction, and remove any that slipped on. Then test every form yourself: fill it in, submit it, and confirm the message lands in your inbox. If it does not, your form settings need a destination email added. Re-test after any big site update.
What to fix first
Start with the problems that hit the most sites, in rough order of how common they were:
- Turn on lazy loading for the images further down your pages. This was the most common problem of all, at 59% of the sites it applied to.
- Add the font setting so your text never goes invisible (50% of sites with custom fonts).
- Make links to other websites open in a new tab (38% of sites).
- Fix any setting that blocks pages or design files search engines need (23% of sites).
- Resize oversized images and fix broken ones (16% of sites each).
- Turn off video and audio that plays on its own (14% of sites).
- Make sure a page list exists and is pointed to from your settings file (10% had none, 13% did not point to it).
After those, work through the smaller items by theme. For getting found: set up or repair your settings file and clean up your page list (empty list 2%, dead links 8%, off-domain addresses 5%, broken sections 6%). For security: confirm a valid certificate (4%), force the secure version (7%), and remove insecure items on secure pages (6%). For annoyances: calm any pushy pop-ups (6%). For Google's richer listings: complete and correct your labeling (5% invalid, 2% wrong reference, 12% inconsistent). For the small touches: rename plain image files (11%), check no important page is hidden from search (1%), and test that every form delivers (4%). Hand the technical ones to whoever built your site. Most are quick, and several you can do yourself today.
Why this is worth your time
This is the most technical chapter in the series, but do not let that put you off, because the wins are concrete. A faster page keeps more visitors from leaving. A valid padlock keeps the scary warning off your address. A working page list and a sensible settings file are the difference between showing up in Google and staying invisible. A form that actually delivers means you stop losing customers who think you ignored them.
And the foundation under these sites was already strong. The typical site passed about 87% of the checks that applied to it, a sign modern builders are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Your job is mostly to find the few cracks: that one oversized image, that missing font setting, that page hidden from search. Half of these sites failed three or more checks, so the odds are good yours has two or three quick wins waiting.
Pick the few you can do yourself this week: turn on lazy loading, resize a heavy photo, fix a broken image, set outside links to open in a new tab, and test your forms. Then hand the genuinely technical items, the certificates, the settings file, the labeling, to whoever built your site, along with the specific notes. None of it needs an ad budget. Almost none needs a big project. And the payoff is a site that loads fast, earns trust at a glance, and gets found by the customers your competitors are still missing.
Free website audit
Get your score
Enter your website and email and we'll run the audit for you. You'll get the full results, your score and exactly what to fix, delivered straight to your inbox.
Free forever plan · No credit card required
Based on an automated check of 100 small-business websites. Every statistic above comes from those results, and the businesses are kept anonymous.