Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last month, I watched a client obsess over their Google PageSpeed Insights score for two weeks. They were stuck at 87 and desperately wanted to hit 90+. Meanwhile, their actual conversion rate was bleeding money – but hey, at least their speed score looked impressive on screenshots, right?
This perfectly captures what's broken about how most businesses approach site speed optimization. We've turned it into a vanity metric game instead of focusing on what actually moves the needle: real user experience and revenue.
After optimizing dozens of business websites over the past few years, I've learned that the "best practices" everyone preaches often miss the mark completely. The difference between a 2-second and 3-second load time rarely matters as much as having the right content load at the right moment.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience with speed optimization across SaaS platforms and e-commerce stores:
Why Core Web Vitals scores can be misleading for business results
The counterintuitive approach that improved conversion rates more than speed tweaks
How to prioritize speed improvements that actually impact revenue
Real metrics that matter more than PageSpeed scores
A practical framework for website optimization that balances speed and business goals
Industry Reality
What the speed optimization industry wants you to believe
Walk into any web development conversation today and you'll hear the same gospel: "Speed is everything. Every 100ms matters. Optimize your Core Web Vitals or Google will punish you." The industry has created an entire ecosystem around this belief.
Here's what everyone typically recommends for business site speed optimization:
Chase perfect PageSpeed Insights scores – Because apparently 90+ is the magic number
Optimize every single image – Compress, convert to WebP, implement lazy loading everywhere
Minimize every asset – CSS, JavaScript, HTML - if it can be minified, do it
Use CDNs for everything – Because geographical distribution solves all problems
Remove "unnecessary" features – Strip out anything that might slow things down
This conventional wisdom exists because speed genuinely does impact user experience. Google has been pushing Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor, and there's legitimate research showing that faster sites perform better. The problem isn't that this advice is wrong – it's that it's incomplete.
The industry treats speed optimization like a technical puzzle to solve, rather than a business strategy to implement. Most speed "experts" focus on making tools happy instead of making users convert. They'll help you achieve a perfect 100 PageSpeed score while your actual business metrics remain unchanged or even decline.
Where this approach falls short is in the real world, where businesses need to balance speed against functionality, user experience, and conversion optimization. Sometimes a slightly slower site that guides users better will outperform a lightning-fast site that confuses them.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came when I was working with a B2B SaaS client whose website was "technically perfect" but commercially broken. They'd hired a speed optimization specialist who had achieved incredible PageSpeed scores – we're talking 95+ across the board. The site loaded fast, checked every technical box, and should have been a conversion machine.
But their trial signup rate had actually decreased after the optimization.
Here's what happened: in the pursuit of speed perfection, they'd removed several "heavy" elements that were actually crucial for conversions. The interactive product demo was gone (too much JavaScript). The video testimonials were replaced with text (videos are heavy). The detailed comparison charts were simplified to basic tables (complex layouts slow things down).
The result? A blazing-fast website that told visitors nothing compelling about why they should sign up for a trial. Users could bounce quickly and efficiently, which I guess technically counts as a good user experience.
This wasn't an isolated case. I'd seen similar patterns with an e-commerce client who'd optimized their product pages to load in under 2 seconds but removed the zoom functionality and multiple product angles in the process. Their bounce rate improved, but their conversion rate tanked because customers couldn't properly evaluate products.
That's when I realized we were solving the wrong problem. Instead of asking "How can we make this site load faster?" we should be asking "How can we make this site convert better while maintaining reasonable speed?"
The breakthrough came when I started treating speed optimization as a conversion optimization challenge rather than a technical exercise. Instead of chasing arbitrary speed scores, I began focusing on optimizing the user's path to conversion – which sometimes meant strategic trade-offs.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
My approach to speed optimization starts with a fundamental question: What needs to load fast, and what can wait?
Instead of optimizing everything equally, I prioritize based on the user journey. The goal isn't to achieve perfect speed scores – it's to remove friction from the conversion path while maintaining the elements that actually drive business results.
Step 1: Audit the Conversion Critical Path
First, I map out exactly what users need to see and interact with to convert. For a SaaS landing page, this might be the headline, value proposition, and signup button. For an e-commerce product page, it's the product images, price, and add-to-cart functionality.
Everything on this critical path gets priority optimization. Everything else can load progressively. This means the hero section loads instantly, while secondary content like testimonials or detailed specifications can load a second or two later without impacting conversions.
Step 2: Implement Progressive Enhancement
Rather than removing conversion-supporting elements, I load them strategically. The core page structure and primary call-to-action load immediately. Enhanced features like product zoom, video testimonials, or interactive demos load after the critical content is ready.
This approach gives users immediate access to what they need while preserving the rich functionality that helps them make purchasing decisions. It's not about making everything fast – it's about making the important things immediate.
Step 3: Optimize for Real User Metrics
Instead of obsessing over PageSpeed Insights, I focus on metrics that correlate with business outcomes: Time to First Contentful Paint for above-the-fold content, interaction readiness for key buttons, and progressive loading completion for supporting elements.
I also track user behavior metrics alongside speed metrics. If the page loads 200ms faster but the conversion rate drops, the optimization failed – regardless of what Google's tools say.
Step 4: Strategic Trade-offs Based on Business Impact
Some features are worth their weight in load time. A product configurator that adds 500ms to load time but increases average order value by 15% is a good trade-off. A social media widget that adds 200ms with no measurable impact gets removed.
Every optimization decision goes through a simple filter: Does this change improve the user's ability to convert while maintaining reasonable performance? If yes, implement. If it's purely for speed scores without business benefit, skip it.
Critical Path
Focus optimization efforts on elements that directly impact conversion, not everything equally
Progressive Loading
Load essential content immediately, enhance with supporting elements as they become available
Business Metrics
Track conversion rates alongside speed metrics to ensure optimizations improve results, not just scores
Strategic Trade-offs
Keep performance-heavy features that demonstrably increase conversion rates or average order value
The results of this approach have been consistently better than traditional speed optimization. Instead of chasing perfect PageSpeed scores, focusing on conversion-critical performance delivers measurable business improvements.
For the B2B SaaS client, we rebuilt their landing page using progressive enhancement. The core signup flow loaded in under 1.5 seconds, while the product demo and detailed testimonials loaded progressively. Their PageSpeed score "only" improved to 78, but trial signups increased by 23% because prospects could actually understand the product value.
With the e-commerce client, we maintained product zoom and multiple image angles while optimizing the initial product information load. The product pages still took 2.8 seconds to fully load, but the essential buying information (price, availability, add-to-cart) was available in 1.2 seconds. Conversion rates improved by 18% because customers could make purchasing decisions with confidence.
The timeline for seeing results is typically 2-4 weeks after implementation. Unlike traditional speed optimizations that might show immediate PageSpeed score improvements with unclear business impact, this approach takes longer to validate but produces measurable revenue improvements.
What surprised me most was how often "slower" sites performed better than "faster" ones when speed optimization was aligned with conversion optimization. A site that loads key content in 1.5 seconds but guides users effectively will outperform a site that loads everything in 1 second but provides a confusing experience.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
The biggest lesson from this experience is that speed optimization should serve business goals, not technical vanity metrics. PageSpeed Insights scores make great screenshots for case studies, but they don't pay the bills.
Conversion-critical elements deserve optimization priority – Not everything needs to load instantly
Progressive enhancement beats aggressive removal – Keep valuable features, load them strategically
User behavior trumps speed scores – A confused user bounces fast regardless of load time
Context matters more than absolute speed – B2B buyers will wait 3 seconds for compelling content
Business metrics validate technical decisions – Conversion rates matter more than Core Web Vitals
Trade-offs should be strategic, not arbitrary – Every performance decision needs business justification
What I'd do differently is start with business impact analysis from day one instead of getting caught up in technical optimization first. The most successful speed optimizations happen when you understand exactly how users convert before you start optimizing how fast pages load.
This approach works best for businesses where conversion optimization matters more than traffic volume. If you're optimizing for ad spend efficiency or user retention, focusing on conversion-critical speed makes perfect sense. If you're purely optimizing for organic search rankings, traditional speed optimization might still be the better approach.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS platforms implementing this approach:
Prioritize signup flow and trial onboarding speed over marketing page perfection
Load product demos progressively after core value proposition is visible
Track trial conversion rates alongside page speed metrics for optimization decisions
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores implementing this approach:
Optimize product information and purchase flow before secondary features
Maintain product zoom and multiple angles even if they impact PageSpeed scores
Track add-to-cart and checkout completion rates to validate speed changes