Website speed
Holiday Let Website Speed and How to Fix a Slow Site
A slow holiday let site loses guests on their phones. Here is how to test yours and fix the usual culprits.
Most guests look at your holiday let on a phone, often on a slow signal. If your pages take too long to appear, they go back to the listing site and book there, and you pay the commission.
The fix usually isn’t complicated. Holiday let website speed mostly comes down to oversized photos, a heavy booking widget and too many add-ons. You can test all three yourself in about ten minutes, and most fixes are free.
Why website speed matters for holiday let bookings
Speed matters because guests give up quickly on a page that won’t load, and Google pays attention to how pages feel to use. A slow site costs you visitors before they’ve even seen your photos.
Think of a guest checking dates for a weekend away. They tap your link from a search, wait, and tap back. You never see that guest in your enquiries, because they never got far enough to leave a trace.
Google also measures page experience through Core Web Vitals. Speed is one signal among many, so it won’t rescue weak content, but a slow site makes everything else you’ve done work harder.
Guests also often search for your own site after finding you on a listing, hoping for a better deal. If that site is slow, you lose the booking you were best placed to win.
How to test your holiday let website speed
Run your address through Google’s free PageSpeed Insights, then check the same pages on a real phone. The tool gives you a score and a list of causes, and the phone shows you what a guest actually sees.
- Go to PageSpeed Insights and paste in your homepage, then a unit page and your booking page.
- Look at the mobile result first, not the desktop one.
- Read the “Opportunities” and “Diagnostics” lists. They name the images and scripts slowing you down.
- Open the site on your own phone with wifi switched off. Count how long it takes before you can read and tap something.
- Check Google Search Console for the Core Web Vitals report, which shows how real visitors experience your site over time.
Test each key page, because your homepage can be fast while a gallery page crawls.
Core Web Vitals in plain English
Core Web Vitals are three measures Google uses for how a page feels to use. They cover how fast the main content appears, how quickly the page reacts to a tap, and whether things jump around while loading.
| Measure | What it means for a guest | Google’s “good” mark |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | How long until the main photo or heading shows | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | How quickly the page responds when they tap | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | Whether the page jumps as it loads | 0.1 or less |
You don’t need to memorise these. If PageSpeed Insights shows green for all three on mobile, you’re in good shape.
What usually makes a holiday let website slow
The usual culprits are huge photos, a heavy booking widget, video, and a pile of plugins or tracking scripts. Holiday let sites lean on big photography, so images are nearly always the first thing to fix.
| Culprit | Why it slows you down | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Full-size photos straight from a camera or phone | Files can be many times bigger than a page needs | Resize to the size shown on the page and compress before uploading |
| Old image formats | Larger files for the same picture | Use modern formats such as WebP where your site allows |
| Every gallery photo loading at once | The page waits for images nobody has scrolled to yet | Lazy load, so images below the screen load later |
| Autoplay background video | Heavy file loads before anything else | Use a still photo, or a short, compressed clip further down |
| Too many plugins and scripts | Each one adds code to download | Remove what you don’t use |
| Cheap or overloaded hosting | The server is slow to respond | Compare hosting, or ask your web provider |
Start with images. A hero photo of your hot tub or hut doesn’t need to be several thousand pixels wide to look sharp on a phone.
When your booking widget slows your site down
It might be. Booking widgets and calendars are often loaded from another company’s servers, so they can add weight and cause the layout to shift as they appear.
To check, run PageSpeed Insights on the page with the widget and look for third-party scripts in the report. Then compare it with a page without one. If the gap is big, you have a few options.
- Keep the widget on the booking page only, not the homepage.
- Place it lower on the page so the main content loads first.
- Reserve space for it so the page doesn’t jump when it loads.
- Ask your booking provider whether a lighter embed is available.
How to check your site is mobile friendly
A mobile friendly holiday let website is readable without zooming, has buttons big enough to tap, and keeps the dates and Book button easy to reach. Speed is half of it, and layout is the other half.
Pick up your phone and try to check availability for a weekend, like a guest would. Notice anything fiddly.
- The text should be readable without pinching.
- You should be able to tap menu items and buttons without hitting the wrong thing.
- The calendar should fit the screen.
- Pop-ups shouldn’t cover the page or block the Book button.
- The photos should fill the screen cleanly, without sideways scrolling.
If you find yourself getting frustrated, so will a guest.
When your website builder is the problem
Sometimes you’ve done everything right and the site is still slow, because the builder or theme won’t let you change what’s causing it. Some builders add code you can’t remove, and some limit image handling.
These signs show it is the platform and not you.
- Scores stay poor after you’ve resized every image.
- You can’t remove or delay scripts the builder adds.
- Pages are slow even with almost nothing on them.
At that point, a lean site built for holiday lets can be the simpler route. Our holiday let website design is built with speed on phones in mind, and website care plans keep hosting and updates looked after so speed doesn’t slip back. You can see how we work before you decide anything.
FAQs
What is a good loading speed for a holiday let website?
Aim for the main content of each page to appear within about 2.5 seconds on a phone. That is Google’s “good” mark for Largest Contentful Paint, one of its Core Web Vitals. Test on mobile rather than your laptop, because phones on patchy rural signal are where slow pages hurt most.
Do Core Web Vitals matter for a small holiday let site?
They are a small part of how Google judges pages, so great content still matters more. But they measure things guests feel, like slow loading and jumping layouts. Fixing them helps visitors stay and book, which is the real prize, and it can only help your search visibility too.
Can my booking widget make my site slow?
Yes. Widgets usually load extra scripts from another company’s servers, which can delay the page or shift things around as they appear. Try loading the widget only on the booking page, and compare your speed test with and without it to see how much it costs you.
How often should I test my website speed?
Test after any change, like adding new photos, a widget or a plugin, and give it a quick check at the start of each season. It takes a few minutes and catches problems before guests do.
Get a second pair of eyes on your site
Send us your website and we’ll tell you, for free, what’s stopping it getting bookings.