Improving your site's performance is an important part of the creation process, as well as ongoing maintenance. The guidelines in this article can help to enhance your visitors' experience, improving aspects such as responsiveness, fluidity, and loading time.
Understanding loading time
Site loading time measures how quickly your site fully loads after a visitor requests access, by either clicking a link or entering the page URL. Many factors can affect the loading time of a page. Some are site-specific, and others are related to your visitor's device and internet connection.
Sites that have been optimized and adjusted load faster than those that are content-heavy.
Optimizing your site can ensure an improved loading time, as well as a better score on performance tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
How Wix measures loading time
Wix monitors and collects data for several metrics. These include Google's Core Web Vitals, and additional vitals such as FCP, TTFB, and TTI. You can view
your site's speed metrics from your dashboard.
Wix automatically collects this performance data in real time across our platform in order to monitor and improve your site's speed. We recommend following the best practices below to ensure an enhanced loading time for your site.
Loading order of elements
When building or updating your site, we recommend that you keep
the loading order of elements in mind, as they can effect your site's performance.
For example, elements that are interactive or content-heavy (e.g. videos and third party apps) tend to load slower than static or lighter elements, such as text and buttons.
Optimizing elements on your site
Optimize the homepage and elements like text, animation, and images for better site performance. Click an option below for more information:
Content that is above the fold of your site is loaded before the rest of your page. Adding meaningful, relevant, and light content to this section of your page ensures that site visitors have useful information to discover while the rest of the page loads.
We advise using static elements such as text, shapes, and buttons on your above the fold. As these elements load first, it'll enhance your site's loading time and performance.
What is 'above the fold'?
This is the section of your site that visitors see first, before starting to scroll down.
Images uploaded to Wix sites are automatically resized for optimization. We recommend using AVIF images rather than PNG images unless you require a transparent background. AVIF images are better optimized for site loading time and performance.
Learn more about images and your site performance.
Notes:
- Wherever possible, Wix automatically converts images to modern formats such as AVIF. This format reduces download size while maintaining image quality.
- It is not possible to upload images over 25mb to your Wix site.
Videos are a great way to encourage visitor interaction and interest. We advise keeping loading time in mind when adding videos, as they generally have high resolutions and take longer to load than static elements.
Third-party apps and iFrames
The content shown in third-party apps and iFrames (e.g. embedded videos or social channels feeds) is delivered from external servers, rather than the Wix servers.
This means Wix cannot optimize them and therefore they may create an overhead on your site’s loading time.
We recommend putting them on secondary pages, with a button on the homepage that will direct your site visitors to them.
We recommend using no more than 3 or 4 fonts on your site, as this can enhance your site's aesthetic and give it a professional feel. Keeping the font styles within this number range can also improve site performance, as it reduces the loading time.
Furthermore, we also recommend avoiding the use of custom fonts where possible. System fonts load faster, which can improve your site's performance.
Learn more about fonts and your siteSpecial effects such as animations and slideshows can bring your site to life.
However, they tend to load slower than static elements, and we recommend keeping them below the fold of your site where possible.
Note: Animated GIFs must be downloaded in full before they begin to play. We recommend converting any animated GIFs that you want to use into a video.
Lightboxes load later than other elements of your site by design. We therefore recommend limiting the use of lightboxes across your site, and avoid using lightboxes as your page's main content.
Your site's DOM order is the order in which visitors using assistive technologies (such as screen readers) navigate through your elements.
In order to provide a smooth experience for these visitors and ensure the correct order of elements, we recommend manually adjusting the visual order of elements to match the order displayed in the Layers panel.
Optimizing your mobile site content
In general, mobile devices are not as strong or fast as desktop computers, and have a slower internet connection. Therefore your site might take longer to load when viewing it on a mobile device.
If your mobile site is loading slowly, we recommend following the below guidelines to optimize its performance.
Click an option below to learn how to:
Use the mobile editor to optimize your mobile-friendly site. You can hide and adjust elements, and even add a welcome screen.
Mobile-friendly sites will look different to the desktop version, so we recommend adjusting it to fit your needs.
To access the mobile editor:
- Open the Wix Editor.
- Click the Mobile Editor icon
from the top toolbar.
Hide unnecessary elements
Some elements may not be relevant to your mobile site, and will significantly impact loading time.
We recommend being mindful of these elements. Avoid overuse of elements such as lightboxes and third-party apps, and keep only relevant and necessary content on your mobile site.
To hide elements from your mobile site:
- Click the element you want to hide.
- Click the Hide Element icon
.
Tip: Hidden elements can be viewed and re-added to your mobile site by clicking
Hidden on Mobile on the left side of the mobile editor.
Large images may take a while to load on your mobile-friendly site. We recommend cropping or making your image smaller to prevent your mobile site's loading time being impacted.
To crop an image:
- Click the image in the editor.
- Click the Crop icon
. - Drag the handles to crop the image.
- Click Apply.
Tip: Images can be resized by clicking the image, then dragging the handles to make it larger or smaller.
Reduce items in galleries and repeaters
Galleries and repeaters are a great way to display images and information on your site, however they tend to load slower than other elements like text or basic shapes.
As a best practice, we recommend reducing the amount of items in a gallery or set of repeaters on mobile. Only display relevant and important items and media, and spread them evenly across your site.
Welcome screens are a great way to introduce your mobile site's brand. This is the first thing site visitors see, while your site can fully load in the background.
To add a welcome screen:
- Click Mobile Tools
on the left side of the mobile editor. - Click Welcome screen.
- Customize your Welcome screen using the options available.
- Click Done.
Use a supported system and browser
Wix sites are supported on different mobile operating systems and browsers. If visitors are having issues viewing your mobile-friendly site, they may need to update their system or browser.
Third party code
Third party code can provide important insight, tools, and features on your site. However, it can also impact your site's loading time and performance if not optimized.
FAQs
Click a question below to learn more.
Why is my website's Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score so low, and how can I improve it?
LCP measures how quickly the largest visible content on your page loads.
To improve it:
- Optimize images with lighter formats like AVIF or WebP and compress them before uploading.
- Minimize the size of above-the-fold content, such as banners or videos.
- Use text or small images above the fold for faster loading.
- Enable caching for your pages in the Wix dashboard.
- Limit custom code or third-party apps that may slow down your page.
How can I reduce my website's Total Blocking Time (TBT)?
TBT measures how long the main thread of your website is blocked by scripts.
To improve TBT:
- Defer non-essential JavaScript and minify JavaScript files.
- Remove unused JavaScript and CSS files from your site.
- Limit the use of animations and transitions, especially those triggered on page load.
- Use Wix’s built-in tools for optimizing your website's performance in the editor.
What should I do if my website is slow despite following optimization tips?
If your website is still slow after optimizing media and reducing unnecessary elements:
- Check the Site Speed dashboard in your Wix account for specific insights.
- Verify your internet connection and browser settings for local issues.
- Contact Wix support to escalate the issue to the Loading Time team for further investigation.
Can I bulk optimize images on my website?
Wix automatically optimizes images during upload, but if you need additional compression:
- Use external tools to compress images before uploading them to Wix.
- Replace large images on your site with optimized versions.
- For Pro Galleries, use the "Adjust Quality" option to optimize all gallery images in bulk.
How can I improve the loading speed of my mobile website?
Mobile sites often load slower due to smaller devices and slower internet connections.
To improve mobile loading speed:
- Hide unnecessary elements on mobile using the mobile editor.
- Use lighter image formats like AVIF and compress large files.
- Avoid placing videos or animations above the fold.
- Enable manual caching for pages with heavy content.
Why are my images displaying blurry on mobile devices?
Blurry images are often caused by high-resolution images being scaled down for smaller screens.
To fix this:
- Use the Wix Media Manager to adjust image dimensions for mobile.
- Replace large images with optimized versions under 1MB.
- Ensure that images are not overlapping with videos or other elements in the editor.
Can animations slow down my website? How do I optimize them?
Yes, animations can significantly impact site performance. To optimize them:
- Use simple transitions instead of complex animations.
- Limit animations at the top of the page (above the fold).
- Trigger animations with user interaction, not on page load.
What is lazy loading, and how does it affect my site?
Lazy loading delays loading images and videos until they enter the user’s viewport, improving initial page load times. Wix enables lazy loading for images and videos by default.
To optimize further:
- Ensure critical content loads first.
- Minimalize above-the-fold elements for faster visible content.
Can I use dynamic pages to improve my site's performance?
Dynamic pages are ideal for sites with a lot of content because they pull data from a CMS collection, reducing the need for multiple static pages. This can improve loading times by:
- Streamlining content management.
- Reducing the number of static pages that need to load at once.
- Allowing you to display content dynamically based on user interaction.
