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Get your website to load fast, even with photos and video
You know what makes your site slow to load (the size of each photo, the video, the fonts it loads) and what to cut without anyone noticing. You know how to check how long your site takes to open on a phone with weak signal, and decide what stays and what goes.
You upload photos of your place and a short video, and the site takes so long to load that someone checking it on their phone with weak signal leaves before seeing anything. You don't know if the problem is the photo, the video, the font you picked, or all of it together. And changing something blindly (pulling the video, compressing the photo without checking) can leave the site worse without actually fixing the slowness.
This course starts by measuring: how long your site really takes to load, on your own phone, with weak signal, and the number that tells you it's time to fix it. It then works through what weighs the site down most, in order: the photo, then the video, then the font. It ends with a way to decide what to cut first when everything is heavy at once, and the habit of measuring again every time you upload something new.
This is for anyone who already has photos or video on their site and notices it's slow to load; it's not for someone who hasn't uploaded anything yet.
- Measure, on your own phone with weak signal, how long your site takes to load
- Work out the right file size for each photo and pick its format before uploading
- Decide which video stays, which one becomes a photo, and how to serve the one that stays
- Cut your site's fonts down to just what you need and know which ones to load first
It helps to already have your site published with at least one photo or video uploaded.
The 6 lessons
In the order it makes the most sense to read them.
- 1
The number that matters: how long your site takes with two bars of signal
You'll know how to measure, on your own phone with weak signal, how long your site really takes to load, and the number that tells you it's time to fix it.
4 min - 2
The hidden weight in every photo
You'll come away knowing how big each photo file should be (not how it looks on screen) and which format to save it in, so your site loads fast without giving up the photos.
6 min - 3
A video stays if it shows something a photo can't
You'll know which video stays, which one becomes a photo, and how to serve the one that stays without slowing down the load.
4 min - 4
The pretty font that's also slow to arrive
You'll leave this lesson knowing how many fonts and weights your website actually needs, which ones are worth loading, and what to ask the person building it for you.
7 min - 5
If it's still slow, this is the first thing to cut
You'll know which order to trim weight in when photos, video, and fonts are all over budget at once, and what to leave alone until the first one is fixed.
6 min - 6
Every time you upload something new, measure again
You'll come away knowing that speed isn't a one-time fix: you measure again every time you upload a large photo, a video, or a new font, and you keep a saved number to compare against.
4 min