Your site takes 5 seconds to load: what it costs and how to fix it

A lot of good local websites were built years ago, back when most folks visited from a desktop computer. Since then, a few things usually pile up:

• Big photos that were never sized down for phones
• Old themes and plugins stacked on top of each other
• Layouts that look fine on a laptop but make phone visitors pinch and zoom
• Extra scripts and widgets nobody remembers adding

None of that means your site is bad. Your content, your story, your service info, your photos of the team or the congregation, all of that is still good stuff. It's the wrapping that's slowing everybody down.

And people today mostly show up on phones, often on a so-so signal in a parking lot or out on a county road. That's where a slow site hurts the most.

I won't throw made-up numbers at you, but here's what I've seen over 20+ years in AV and IT: people don't wait. When a page drags, they hit the back button and try the next result. They don't call to tell you your site was slow. They just leave.

For a business, that's a customer who was ready to ask for a quote, book a time, or check your hours, and ended up somewhere else.

For a church or non-profit, it's the visitor trying to find service times, the shut-in looking for where to watch or listen from home, or the volunteer looking for the sign-up. A slow page puts a little speed bump between them and you. Nobody's keeping score against anybody else here. It's just about making it easy for your people to reach you.

There's also a quieter cost: a slow, clunky site makes a good organization look tired. You know you're not. Your website should say so too.

You don't need to tear it down and start over. That's what our Site Migration & Refresh is for.

Here's how it works:

• We keep your content. Your words, your pages, your photos come along for the ride.
• We refresh the layout so it's built for phones first, and built with accessibility in mind.
• We clean up the heavy stuff that slows things down.
• We handle the switch with zero downtime, so your site stays up the whole time we're working.

Pricing is simple: $259 setup, then $83 a month for businesses or $42 a month for churches and non-profits.

And the same promise we make on every build: Your first mobile-responsive design draft is delivered within 72 hours of your completed, paid onboarding, or we take 50% off your setup fee. That draft is a private preview for you to mark up, not the finished live site. We'll fine-tune it together before anything changes for your visitors.*Clock starts when your form is complete and setup is paid. See how it works

To get going, head to our website onboarding page and pick Migration. If you're a church and this whole thing sounds like a lot, relax. You don't have to understand any of the tech. We do the lifting, you tell us what matters to your people, and we'll cheer you across the finish line.