Web design6 min
How much does a website cost in Ireland?
What Irish small businesses pay for a website in 2026, from a basic brochure site to an online shop, with the source; running costs, VAT, grants and how to compare quotes.
Website speed optimisation so people stay long enough to call
On a weak signal, a slow site is a blank screen, and people go back before they see what you do. We find what's slowing yours down, fix it and measure it again.
PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed InsightsCopy linkDocs
Report from 20 Oct 2026, 15:48:54
https://www.solanavetstramore.ie/Analyse
MobileDesktop
What your real users are experiencingThis URLOrigin
Core Web Vitals Assessment: Passed
Expand view
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Other Notable Metrics
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Time to First Byte (TTFB)
Core Web Vitals Assessment: Failed
Expand view
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Other Notable Metrics
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Time to First Byte (TTFB)
Latest 28-day collection periodVarious mobile devicesFull visit durationsVarious network connections
Diagnose performance issues
100Performance
100Accessibility
100Best Practices
100SEO
2/2Agentic browsing
100Performance
Values are estimated and may vary. The performance score is calculated directly from these metrics. See calculator.
0–4950–8990–100
Vet in Tramore with same-day appointments
Dogs and cats. Emergency care until 22:00.
Message us to book
Directions
Vaccinations and check-ups
Surgery and ultrasound
Emergency care
MetricsExpand view
First Contentful Paint
0.8 s
Largest Contentful Paint
0.9 s
Total Blocking Time
0 ms
Cumulative Layout Shift
0
Speed Index
0.9 s
Captured at 20 Oct 2026, 15:48 ISTEmulated Moto G Power with Lighthouse 13.5.0Initial page loadSlow 4G throttling
Your site keeps people waiting, and they won't
Speed problems hide well on the office broadband.
- On a country road with two bars, your home page stays white for seconds.
- PageSpeed Insights is full of red and nobody can explain it.
- There are 35 plugins and nobody knows what half of them do.
- Photos go up straight from the phone, several megabytes each.
What changes when the site loads straight away
How we get there
People see what you do straight away, in the car park or out on a job, and the call button is there before they lose patience. Google measures that experience for real visitors and takes it into account.
We fix what's slowing your site without rebuilding it where we can, and show you the before and after in the same Google tool.
Something on screen right away
Your important pages show their main content quickly, even on a weak signal.
LCP under 2.5 s as the target
Passes Google's speed check on real phones
The measurements Google takes from real visitors, fixed where they fail.
Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP and CLS
Before and after, measured
Every page tested before and after with the same Google tool, so you see the difference yourself.
PageSpeed Insights
How we speed up your site
Four stages, tested on a copy so your site stays open.
Measure
Your important pages tested on a phone, with lab tests and real visitor data where Google has it.
Find what slows it
What holds back each page, ranked by how much it costs you.
Fix it on a copy
Images, scripts, fonts, caching and hosting fixed as set in your proposal, tested before anything goes live.
Measure again
The same pages tested again with the same tool, and the before and after sent to you.
What our website speed work covers
The fixes your site needs, measured. The price goes in your proposal.
- Photos that load fast
- Only the code each page needs
- A server that answers fast
- A page that doesn't jump or freeze
- A before and after you can read
We test your site on a phone and tell you what's slowing it
We run your pages through PageSpeed Insights and a real phone on mobile data and send you the results in plain English: what takes longest, why, and what we'd fix first.
- What we found
- The plan, page by page
- The fixed quote
- What we wouldn't do
Carles builds your site, and he's the one who reviews it in the audit. Òscar makes sure Google understands it. Who we are
audit · harbourcoffeeroasters.ie
sample document
1 · What we found
On mobile data your home page takes 7 seconds: an 8 MB header photo and 35 plugins, 12 of them unused.
2 · What we'd fix, in order
- Images resized and converted
- Unused plugins removed
- Cookie banner that waits for consent
- Before and after with PageSpeed Insights
3 · Fixed quote
- Price
- Fixed, in your proposal
- Paid
- Once it's faster
- Up front
- Nothing
- Until then
- €0
You pay once your site is loading fast
How paying at the end worksQuestions about website speed
What owners ask when their site feels slow. Add yours to the form.
Is my website's speed hurting my Google ranking?
Speed is one of the page experience signals Google uses, so it can help at the margin. The bigger cost is people: a slow page loses visitors before they see you, and that costs enquiries wherever you rank.
Can my website be made faster without a rebuild?
Usually: images, plugins, caching, hosting and scripts can all be fixed on the existing site. If the theme or page builder is the real problem, we tell you, and whether a redesign would cost less than patching.
What does website speed optimisation cost?
Speed work is billed by the hour: Irish freelance web designers charge €30-€80/hour, according to Vimar. Ours goes in your proposal, fixed, based on what your site needs. You pay once the changes are live and you've seen the before and after with the same Google tool.
What's a good PageSpeed score?
The score is a guide; the real-visitor data above it (Core Web Vitals) matters more, especially the main content appearing within 2.5 seconds. On mobile, getting those into the green is more useful than chasing 100.
Does it matter where my website is hosted?
It can. A server far away or an overloaded cheap plan makes every page wait before it starts loading. We check how long your server takes to answer and, if it's the bottleneck, suggest hosting in your name that suits your site.
Website speed optimisation makes a site load fast, particularly on a phone: lighter images, fewer and better plugins, caching, decent hosting and code that doesn't hold the page up. We measure with Google's PageSpeed Insights before and after, so you can see the difference.
More detail: Website speed
A slow page loses people before they see a thing
Google considers loading good when the main content appears within 2.5 seconds for real visitors (web.dev). Plenty of small business sites are well past that on mobile data, and outside the cities the signal is often weaker still.
Speed work is concrete and easy to check. In the free audit we measure your site on a phone and tell you what's slowing it.
Speed for Irish visitors: rural signal, hosting and cookie banners
Many of your visitors will open the site on mobile data, and away from the bigger towns the connection can be weak, so we test on a throttled mobile connection rather than office broadband. Hosting in Ireland or nearby in Europe usually answers faster for Irish visitors than a budget server on another continent.
Cookie banners slow sites down too. The DPC expects analytics and advertising scripts to wait for consent, and a banner that loads everything first is slower as well as non-compliant; fixing it helps both.
Making WordPress faster: plugins, hosting and images
Many small business sites run on WordPress, and their slowness usually has the same three causes. Each one has a fix that doesn't require a new site.
Plugins that load everywhere
A slider, a form builder or a chat widget can load its code on every page, even where it isn't used. We remove what you don't need and limit the rest to the pages that use it.
Hosting that answers slowly
Cheap shared hosting can take a long time just to start sending the page. Caching helps; sometimes a better plan is the real fix, and we say so.
server response time
Images straight from the camera
Photos several megabytes each, shown at a fraction of their size. Resising and modern formats make them a fraction of the weight.
Core Web Vitals, explained without the jargon
Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge page experience: how long the main content takes to appear (LCP), how quickly the page responds when you tap something (INP) and how much the layout jumps while loading (CLS). Google's targets are 2.5 seconds or less for LCP, 200 milliseconds or less for INP and 0.1 or less for CLS (web.dev).
We aim for those targets on your important pages, which matter more than a perfect score on every tool. If speed is only one of several problems, an SEO audit or a website redesign may be the better place to start.
What's included, point by point
Photos that load fast
Modern formats, the right size for each screen and images below the fold loaded only when needed.
AVIF and WebP, lazy loading
Only the code each page needs
Unused plugins and scripts removed, and the rest loaded when it's needed.
script cleanup and deferral
A server that answers fast
Caching set up and, if needed, a hosting recommendation in your name.
CDN and server response time
A page that doesn't jump or freeze
Content that shifts while loading and buttons that respond late, fixed.
CLS and INP
A before and after you can read
Measurements for each page, in plain English.
When speed work pays off, and when it doesn't
Pays off if
- Your site is slow on a phone.
- You want to keep your current site if possible.
- You can give us access to the site and the hosting.
Not a fit if
- You want a perfect score on every tool, whatever it costs.
- Your site needs a full rebuild anyway.
- You can't give access to the site.
More on fast websites
What goes well with speed work
Website guides
Your next customer is opening your site on two bars of signal. Let it load before they give up.
Send us your web address and in under a week we'll tell you what's slowing it and what fixing it involves.
Test my site's speed