Presence Can the customer find you?
Service / One-timeWebsite Performance Audit
One-time $400
A family on Emerald Isle trying to load your restaurant site on 4G LTE doesn't wait 8 seconds. A homeowner in rural Jones County searching for a plumber on their phone doesn't get a second chance to hit your slow-loading page. Speed is a ranking factor and a conversion factor — we tell you exactly what's wrong and in what order to fix it.
Owner-built, human-supervised, and supported by monitored automation.
3 business days turnaround. Credited in full toward a website rebuild.
Flat price for one site. Multi-site or e-commerce audits are quoted separately.
Short answers, before the detail
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are Google's three primary page experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how fast your main content loads; Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — how stable your page is while loading; and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — how responsive your page is to user input. Google uses these as ranking signals in local search.
Is implementation included in the audit?
The audit delivers a prioritized fix list with specific recommendations. Implementation is a separate engagement — we can implement the fixes or you can hand the report to your existing developer. You can decide after seeing the audit.
What the audit covers
Core Web Vitals analysis
LCP, CLS, and INP scores measured from real-world data and lab tests — with specific diagnosis of what's causing each failure. Not just "your LCP is 4.2 seconds" — but what's causing it and what fix eliminates it.
Mobile vs. desktop comparison
Eastern NC mobile traffic often runs on 4G and LTE, not fiber. We test on simulated mobile connections matching the real-world conditions your customers experience, not just desktop speeds that look fine in your office.
Image optimization assessment
Oversized, uncompressed images are a common performance problem on Eastern NC business sites — especially sites with heavy photo libraries. We identify every image that's adding unnecessary load time and specify the exact optimization needed.
JavaScript & render-blocking audit
Third-party scripts, tracking pixels, chat widgets, and plugins that delay page rendering are identified and ranked by impact. We tell you which ones to remove, defer, or replace.
Hosting & server response assessment
TTFB (Time to First Byte) measurement and server response analysis. Cheap shared hosting is often the hidden culprit behind slow sites — we'll tell you if that's the issue and what tier of hosting actually fixes it.
Prioritized fix list
A ranked action plan — highest impact fixes first, with estimated improvement for each. You can hand this to any developer or have us implement it. No padding, no generic advice — specific fixes ranked by business impact for your actual site.
What's not included
- Implementing the fixes — a separate engagement (we can do it, or you can hand the list to your developer)
- Work outside the written proposal — quoted separately before it starts
Pricing
Who does what
Human oversight
Alex scopes and builds it, and reviews anything automated before it goes live. You approve anything customer-facing.
Who owns what
Once the project is paid in full, the files and work made for you are yours.
Who this is for
Any Eastern NC business with an existing website that suspects their site is slow but doesn't know what's causing it or what to fix first. A performance audit gives you the diagnosis before you commit to a rebuild or a developer engagement.
It's also the right first step if you're considering a full website rebuild — knowing whether your current site's problems are fixable or structural saves you from an expensive rebuild when targeted fixes would suffice, and from wasted time on fixes when a rebuild is actually the right call.
For businesses starting a GEO or AEO engagement, we often recommend a performance audit first — a slow site undermines every other visibility investment you make.
Frequently asked questions
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are Google's three primary page experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how fast your main content loads; Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — how stable your page is while loading; and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — how responsive your page is to user input. Google uses these as ranking signals in local search.
Does page speed affect local search rankings?
Yes — Google's Page Experience update made Core Web Vitals an explicit ranking factor. For Eastern NC businesses where customers often search on mobile with 4G connectivity, slow load times have a disproportionately negative impact on both rankings and conversions.
Is implementation included in the audit?
The audit delivers a prioritized fix list with specific recommendations. Implementation is a separate engagement — we can implement the fixes or you can hand the report to your existing developer. You can decide after seeing the audit.
What platforms can you audit?
Any publicly accessible website — WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, custom-built, and Astro. Platform matters for which fixes are feasible and we'll tell you which recommendations apply to your specific setup.
How much improvement can we expect?
The audit ranks every fix by impact, so you know which changes matter most. Oversized images are a common culprit on unoptimized sites. Once fixes are live, changes in LCP and mobile load time show up in Google Search Console's Core Web Vitals report over the following weeks.
Related services
The terms on this page, explained
No jargon test. If any of this is unfamiliar, here is what it actually means — written for the person paying for the work, not the person selling it.
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A network of servers worldwide that keep copies of your site so every visitor is served from somewhere physically near them. It cuts load times and absorbs traffic spikes without you doing anything.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s three measurements of real-world page experience: loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP), and visual stability (CLS). Each is graded at the 75th percentile of real visits, split between mobile and desktop — so a page passes only when it is fast for three visitors out of four, not on average.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
How much visible content jumps around unexpectedly while a page loads. 0.1 or less is good; above 0.25 is poor. Movement the visitor caused — opening a menu, expanding an accordion — is excluded.
First Input Delay (FID)
A retired responsiveness metric that measured only the delay before the first interaction was handled — not how long the work took, and not any interaction after the first. Google replaced it with INP in 2024.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
How quickly the page visibly responds after someone taps or clicks, measured across the whole visit rather than just the first interaction. 200 milliseconds or less is good; over 500 milliseconds is poor.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
How long until the biggest visible element — usually the hero image or headline — finishes rendering. Google considers 2.5 seconds or less good and anything over 4 seconds poor, measured on real visits rather than lab tests.
Lighthouse
Google’s free auditing tool, built into Chrome, that scores a page on performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. It runs a simulated load on your own machine, which makes it a useful diagnostic but not the field data Google actually grades you on.
Page speed
How fast a page becomes usable for a real visitor. It affects both what Google reports about your site and how many people give up before it loads — and on mobile connections those two are tightly linked.
Render-blocking resource
A stylesheet or script the browser must download and process before it can display anything, leaving the visitor on a blank screen. Removing or deferring these is usually the fastest performance win available on an existing site.
Ready to know exactly what's slowing you down? Start with a free Market Leak Check.
Prefer to talk it through first? Book a consultation.