Good news: a slow Webflow site isn't always some super technical problem. A lot of the time, it comes down to a few simple things that are easy to miss when you're focused on design.
Here are those previously mentioned 3 things, that can slow down your Webflow site, and simple ways to fix them.
Using pictures that are too large
First off, we often see people putting pictures on their site that are just... bigger than they need to be. Not necessarily bigger visually on the page, but bigger in terms of file size – the amount of data the picture holds. This is a really common mistake.
Why this is a problem: Think about downloading a big file versus a small one. The big one takes longer, right? Every picture on your website is a file someone's browser has to download. If you have several pictures on a page, and each file is very large (like many megabytes), it adds up. The browser has to work harder and wait longer to pull all that data, which makes the page show up slowly.
What do we recommend?
- Shrink pictures before adding them: The best way to deal with this is before you even put the picture into Webflow. Use a simple tool (there are free ones online like Compressor.io) to make the picture file smaller. You can usually do this without making the picture look fuzzy on the screen. Try to get the file size down to kilobytes (KB), not megabytes (MB).
- Use the right file type: Use .jpg for regular photos. If you need a see-through background (like for a logo), .png is fine, but check its file size. For icons or simple graphics, .svg files are usually tiny and stay sharp at any size, so use those when you can.
- Webflow tries to help: Webflow does make smaller versions of your pictures for different screen sizes, which is helpful. But starting with a smaller, optimized file makes a difference. Pay special attention to pictures right at the top of your page – they load first.
Too much animation
Adding movement or interactions (like things that change when you point at them or scroll) can make a site feel more interesting. And a little bit is great! But putting animations on lots of things, or making the animations very complex, can really slow things down.
Why this is a problem: Making things move on a website isn't "free" – it takes effort from the visitor's computer or phone. In other words, it has to calculate all the steps of the animation. If you have too many things animating, or the animations are complicated, you're giving the browser a lot of work to do all at once. This can make the site feel slow or choppy, especially on older or less powerful devices.
What do we recommend?
- Use animation smartly: Don't feel like everything has to move. Use animations where they actually help someone understand or use the site, or to gently guide their attention to something important.
- Simple is fine: A simple fade or a smooth slide usually looks good and requires less effort from the browser than a complex animation with many steps or layers moving.
- Be careful on page load: Having tons of things animate as soon as the page loads can make the site feel slow to appear, even if the basic content is there. Sometimes it's better to have things animate only when someone scrolls down to them.
- Test on different devices: What looks perfectly smooth on your design screen might not run well on a basic mobile phone. Always check how your animations look and feel on different phones and computers. If it's not smooth, simplify it.
- Delete unused animations: If you experimented with animations and decided not to use them, clean them up in the Interactions panel in Webflow. They can still add weight even if they aren't actively running.
Extra stuff from other websites (embeds)
Webflow makes it easy to drop in videos from YouTube, maps from Google, or code snippets from other tools. And this is super convenient. But each thing you embed from another website adds extra steps and things the browser has to load.
Why this is a problem: When someone visits your page, their browser doesn't just download your site's files from Webflow. It also has to go out to YouTube, Google, or wherever that embeds lives, and download their code and files too. Each of these trips takes time. And you don't have control over how fast or efficient that external code is. Having a messy structure in Webflow itself – lots of hidden elements or unnecessarily complicated layers – also makes the browser work harder to figure out the page layout.
What do we recommend?
- Ask if you really need it: Do you truly need that live feed or fully interactive map on the page, or could a simple picture with a link to the external site work just as well? Each embed adds to the loading time.
- Think about linking instead: For things like videos, maybe just put a static image (like the video thumbnail) that links to the video on its original site, opening in a new tab. The video code only loads if someone clicks that link.
- Clean up your Webflow project: This is like cleaning your house; it just makes things run better.
- Styles: In your Styles panel, delete any styles you created but aren't actually using anywhere on your site.
- Elements: Look at the list of elements on your page in the Navigator panel. Delete any elements that are hidden or just left over from design changes if you don't need them anymore.
- Structure: Try to keep the way you stack and nest elements in the Navigator as simple and clean as you can.
- Be careful with custom code: If you're adding code snippets, make sure they are necessary. Badly written or extra code can definitely slow your page down.
