Description

Most site owners who suspect a speed problem are working from a feeling, not a fact. The homepage loads fine on the office wifi, a friend mentioned the shop felt sluggish on their phone, or a Google Search Console warning flagged Core Web Vitals without saying what to actually change. That gap between “something feels slow” and “here is exactly what to fix, in what order” is expensive to leave open — it either leads to no action at all, or to money spent fixing the wrong thing. And speed problems rarely announce themselves clearly: a site can look fine on the device you’re testing it from while genuinely struggling for a visitor on a mid-range phone over mobile data, which is exactly the audience most sites can least afford to lose.

The reason that gap exists is that most free speed checkers only run a single lab test: one snapshot, one device profile, one moment in time, usually against your homepage only. A lab test tells you how a page performed under one simulated condition. It does not tell you how your actual visitors — on their actual phones, their actual connections, loading the actual pages they land on — are experiencing your site. Two sites can score identically in a lab test and have completely different real-world Core Web Vitals, because real users bring variables a lab can’t simulate: patchy mobile signal, older devices, ad blockers, browser extensions, and pages other than the homepage. A lab test also tends to run against whichever page you point it at, usually the homepage, while the pages actually carrying your traffic and conversions — a landing page, a service page, a product listing — often go unchecked entirely and can be performing very differently.

Speed Audit closes that gap directly. It tests your key pages on both mobile and desktop — not just the homepage — and analyses your real Core Web Vitals field data: LCP (how fast the main content appears), INP (how responsive the page feels when someone actually interacts with it), and CLS (how much the layout jumps around while loading). Field data reflects what your actual visitors experienced, aggregated over real sessions, which is a fundamentally more honest picture than any single lab run. From that data, you get a prioritised list of what to fix, with an effort and impact estimate attached to each item, so you know which fixes are worth doing first and which can wait.

What makes this different from a generic PageSpeed printout is the combination of real field data with a prioritisation layer built for decision-making, not just diagnosis. A raw Core Web Vitals report gives you scores and a list of technical flags. It doesn’t tell you that fixing your product image sizes will move the needle in a week while migrating your entire hosting setup won’t pay off for months. This audit does that translation work, with an effort and impact estimate on every item, and then walks you through it on a call, so you leave with a plan you actually understand rather than a document you have to decode.

There’s also a sequencing benefit that’s easy to underrate: ordering an audit first, rather than jumping straight into a full optimisation, means every dollar of the eventual fix work goes toward something the data has already shown matters. It removes the guesswork of “let’s just try optimising everything and see” and replaces it with a plan built from your own site’s real numbers. If the audit turns up relatively little wrong, you’ve spent a modest amount to confirm that and can stop there with confidence. If it turns up a lot, you now know exactly what a fuller optimisation needs to cover before you commit to it.

How it works

1. You share your key pages. Homepage, a couple of top landing or product pages, whatever pages actually carry your traffic and conversions — these are what get tested, not just the homepage.
2. Mobile and desktop testing. Each key page is tested under both device profiles, since mobile and desktop performance can differ significantly and a desktop-only view misses where most visitors actually struggle.
3. Core Web Vitals field data is pulled and analysed. Real-user LCP, INP and CLS data is gathered for your pages and reviewed against current Core Web Vitals thresholds, rather than relying on a one-off lab score.
4. The findings are turned into a prioritised list. Every issue found gets ranked with an effort and impact estimate, so the list reads as a plan of what to do first, not a dump of technical flags.
5. A 30-minute walkthrough call. You get the list explained in plain language — what each item means, why it matters, and what fixing it would involve — with room for your questions.

Who this is for: This fits site owners who suspect speed is a problem but want a clear diagnosis before committing to a full optimisation, rather than paying for fixes on a guess. It also fits anyone who wants a second opinion on speed work already done elsewhere — a way to check whether previous fixes actually addressed what was slowing real visitors down, or just improved a lab score.

What’s included

• ✓Mobile & desktop testing on key pages
• ✓Core Web Vitals field data analysis
• ✓Prioritised list of what to fix
• ✓Effort and impact estimate per item
• ✓30-minute walkthrough call

The Core Web Vitals field data analysis is the foundation the rest of the audit is built on — it’s the difference between guessing what’s slow and knowing, because it’s drawn from how your site actually performed for real visitors rather than a simulated test run. The effort and impact estimate on each item is what turns that data into something usable: instead of a flat list of technical issues, you get a ranked view of where your time or budget will actually move the needle first. And the 30-minute walkthrough call exists because a list of findings is only useful if you understand it — the call is where questions get answered and the plan gets translated into next steps you can act on immediately.

This is a one-time payment — there’s no subscription, no recurring charge, and nothing auto-renews. You pay once, the audit gets carried out, and the engagement ends with your walkthrough call. There’s nothing to cancel afterward because there’s nothing ongoing to begin with, and no follow-up charges appear later for “finishing” the diagnosis — what you receive on the call is the complete deliverable.

Because the diagnostic pulls your real-user Core Web Vitals data rather than relying on a single lab test, the findings you receive reflect what actual visitors experience on your site, not a synthetic score that may not match reality. That’s the whole point of paying for a proper audit instead of running a free tool yourself: the data underneath it is more trustworthy, and the prioritisation on top of it is built for a decision, not just a diagnosis.

After purchase, the process runs through key-page testing, field data analysis, and list assembly, finishing with your walkthrough call — at which point the list is entirely yours. You can hand it to your own developer, work through it yourself, or bring it to us for Standard Speed Optimization. Most clients who order Speed Audit do move on to Standard once they see, in concrete terms, what’s actually holding their site back — but that decision is yours to make with the data in hand, not something the audit pushes you toward. Either way, you leave the walkthrough call with a document you can act on immediately, whoever ends up doing the work.

How is this different from a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights? A free tool gives you a lab score from a single test run, usually just for your homepage. This audit tests multiple key pages on both mobile and desktop, pulls real-user field data instead of a one-off simulation, and — critically — ranks the findings by effort and impact so you know what to fix first. You also get a human walkthrough call instead of a report you have to interpret alone.

Do I have to hire you to fix what the audit finds? No. The prioritised list is yours to use however you want — implement it yourself, hand it to your existing developer, or bring it to us for Standard Speed Optimization if you’d rather have it done for you. Nothing about the audit locks you into further work.

What if I’ve already had speed work done elsewhere? That’s a common reason people order this audit — as a second opinion. Because it’s based on real Core Web Vitals field data rather than a lab test, it will show you whether previous fixes actually improved what real visitors experience, or just moved a score on a report.

What do I actually walk away with? A written, prioritised list of specific issues on your key pages, each with an effort and impact estimate, plus a 30-minute call where the list gets explained to you directly. It’s built to be actionable on its own — you don’t need us to interpret it for you afterward, though the offer to help implement it is there if you want it.

One-time project. Fixed price, no surprises. You get a clear, prioritised answer to “what’s actually slowing my site down” without committing to any further work. Secure checkout — payments processed via Stripe, bank transfer, or crypto (Mercuryo). Questions before ordering? Talk to us first.