Landing Pages Fail When They Look Good but Load Slow

Slow pages don’t just annoy people; they change their minds. A landing page isn’t a gallery. It’s a decision surface with a clock running in the background. Every extra 200ms is a chance for doubt to creep in, for a tab to steal attention, for a calendar reminder to win. Speed is UX. Treat it like a feature with a budget, not a line item for QA to “optimise later”.

And if your landing page design agency can’t talk in budgets and trade‑offs, you’re buying decoration, not outcomes.

The UX Audit bit (not just Core Web Vitals)

• Momentum is trust. Fast pages feel competent; slow pages feel risky. Users won’t say this aloud—your bounce rate will say it for them.
• Latency creates micro‑decisions. Every pause is a chance to reconsider. Remove pauses, remove exits.
• Perception beats perfection. Skeletons beat spinners. Progressive reveal beats “loading…”. Optimistic UI feels kinder than anxious UI.
• Stop the thinking tax. Fewer fonts, fewer motion gizmos, fewer layout jumps (CLS). Simpler is easier to parse and faster to ship.
• Truthful motion. Animation should explain change, not conceal lag. Sub‑200ms transitions unless there’s a real narrative reason.

The Landing Page Budget (without adding UX debt)

Publish this before you design anything. Then defend it like a product requirement.

• TTFB < 200ms (edge hosting/CDN)
• LCP < 2.5s on mobile
• INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1
• Critical above‑the‑fold ≤ 150KB (HTML + CSS + JS + hero assets)
• Total JS ≤ 160KB gzipped
• Fonts: one family (variable if possible), ≤ two weights, subsetted

Rule: Any design choice that blows the budget must earn its keep with a measurable lift. Otherwise: defer or delete.

The “defer or delete” test

1. Does this element move the primary metric (lead, demo, checkout)?
   • Yes: KEEP, but defer anything not needed for first paint.
   • No: DELETE. Pretty ≠ persuasive.

Document the decision. Future‑you will thank you.

Framer build notes (how not to sabotage performance)

Framer ships fast by default – until you decorate it into a coma. Use the platform’s strengths; avoid the usual traps.

Assets

• Hero image: export AVIF/WebP; provide exact breakpoints; target 80–120KB. PNG only if you truly need transparency.
• Video: MP4/H.264 with a poster frame. If you must use YouTube/Vimeo, lazy‑load the iframe behind a click.
• Icons/illustrations: inline SVG or sprite. Be allergic to 2MB Lottie loops. If you insist on Lottie, compress and keep it to one loop.

Fonts

• One family, two weights or a single variable font. Subset to the scripts you actually use. In Framer, prefer hosted fonts with font-display: swap—your job is to keep the count sane.

Motion

• Keep transitions between 120–200ms and standardise easing. Ban scroll‑jacking, parallax stacks and blur‑on‑scroll—the quickest way to murder INP and legibility.
• Motion must explain hierarchy changes (open/close, appear/disappear). If it doesn’t teach, remove it.

Layout & components

• One hero per breakpoint. Don’t ship A/B inside the same page; publish variants as separate URLs.
• Build a proof module (logo strip / quote / metric) as a single component with props; stop duplicating near‑identical versions.
• Use Framer’s responsive constraints; avoid negative‑margin hacks that cause layout shifts.

Scripts & embeds

• Pick one analytics tag (consent‑aware). Heatmaps/session replay only when diagnosing; turn them off after.
• Replace chat widgets with a clear promise (“we reply within 15 minutes”) or link to a contact page. Widgets are JS grenades.
• Keep forms native or use a light embed. If you must use a heavy provider, wrap it in a click‑to‑load container.

UX patterns that keep speed felt

• Explaining CTA. “Book a 15‑min demo → calendar opens.”
  Reduces hesitation and avoids surprise loads.
• Skeletons, not spinners. Show structure instantly; let content stream.
• Form friction removal. Inline validation, generous tap targets, one clear error at a time; no page reloads.
• Proof early, not heavy. A single metric or short quote in the first viewport. The 30‑logo wall can live below the fold.
• Tidy above the fold. One headline, one subhead, one CTA. If everything shouts, nothing speaks.

A Framer performance checklist for Landing Pages

Pre‑flight (before you design):

•  Performance budget posted in the project (TTFB/LCP/INP/CLS + byte caps)
•  One analytics vendor agreed; anything else needs a business case
•  Asset policy set: AVIF/WebP for images, MP4 for video, SVG for icons
•  Copy/brand agree to one font family and ≤ two weights

Build (the page itself):

•  Hero image ≤ 120KB with proper srcset/sizes; set as LCP/prioritised
•  1 font family, ≤ 2 weights (or 1 variable); subset; font-display: swap
•  Fallback font metrics tuned to avoid layout jump (CLS guard)
•  Total first‑load JS ≤ 160KB gzipped; no third‑party script in the head
•  All below‑the‑fold images lazy‑loaded; no GIFs pretending to be video
•  No scroll‑jacking / parallax / blur stacks; transitions 120–200ms
•  Proof module reused as one component; no duplicated variants
•  Forms are native or light embeds; heavy providers click‑to‑load
•  Only one analytics tag; A/B variants ship as separate URLs
•  Chat/widgets off by default; link to contact instead

Content hygiene (for the people who update it later):

•  Uploads under 1MB; hero ≤ 120KB; no PNG unless transparent needed
•  Do not paste raw YouTube/Vimeo iframes; use the poster‑image → click‑to‑load block
•  No Lottie loops over 500KB; compress JSON; one loop max
•  Keep headlines to one line on mobile; avoid manual line breaks
•  Don’t add new font weights because “it felt right”

Diagnostics (run on the published landing page URL, mobile):

•  Lighthouse and Pagespeed: LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1, INP < 200ms
•  Chrome DevTools → Performance: check long tasks; nothing > 200ms
•  Network tab: first 5 requests < 150KB total; no render‑blocking third‑party
•  Throttle to “Fast 3G”; page remains readable with skeletons
•  Record a 30‑second Web Vitals trace; export and keep with the release

Owner & cadence:

•  Name one owner for speed; add a “Thursday Speed Check” to the calendar
•  Re‑test after every content update and after adding any script

Print it. Make it someone’s job.

Working with a Landing Page Agency (or not)

If an agency talks colour palettes but can’t hold a conversation about LCP/INP, you’re buying a poster, not a product. Ask for their performance budget, their approach to defer or delete, and a Framer‑specific checklist like the one above. If they blink, move on.

Speed isn’t an engineering hobby. It’s a UX commitment, a dev discipline and a business decision.

Ship faster pages, and you’ll ship faster decisions.