How I Improved My Art Website’s Load Time by 160ms Without Code
Site speed matters a lot. A slow website can turn away visitors before they even see your work, and it can negatively impact your SEO. When I first ran a speed test on my art website using GTMetrix, the homepage loaded in 771ms. Not great, especially for an image-heavy site built to showcase my gouache illustrations.
Diagnosing the Problem
After reviewing the GTMetrix report, the main issues were clear:
My homepage images were too large
Squarespace’s built-in JavaScript was affecting performance
The newsletter signup forms (Kit pop-up, header, and footer) were slowing down page speed even more
As a visual artist, I want to present high-quality images, but I learned most web images should stay under 300KB, ideally closer to 100KB, and banner images should be under 500KB to optimize for performance.
What I Did to Optimize My Site
Here are the steps I took to reduce load time:
Compressed homepage images using imagecompressor.com, keeping each file under 300KB
Removed animation on text
Removed unnecessary content blocks, including a large Instagram image feed, which added bulk
Eliminated multiple Kit newsletter signup forms from the homepage (pop-up and embedded home page form) to reduce JavaScript calls
Created a separate newsletter page with a signup form, now linked in the website header.
Results So Far
After these changes, I ran another GTMetrix test. The new load time: 611ms. A solid improvement for the changes made so far
While my original goal was to get down to 150ms, I’ve since realized that may not be feasible with Squarespace due to platform limitations. Still, this was a great learning experience in technical SEO and performance optimization.
Before
After
Key Takeaways
Image compression is one of the simplest and most effective ways to improve site speed.
Embedded third-party tools (like pop-ups or signups) can significantly impact performance.
Even without access to code, thoughtful edits can lead to meaningful speed improvements.
This was my first real technical SEO project, and it reminded me that optimization doesn’t need to be complicated. I’ll continue refining the site and exploring more ways to improve performance.