The state of Suffolk trade websites 2026

1. 1 What we did

   In November we tested the websites of 100 Suffolk trade businesses on a phone: builders, electricians, plumbers, roofers, landscapers, painters, window cleaners, carpenters, plasterers and kitchen fitters, from across the county. We searched the way a customer would, such as "roofer Felixstowe", and took the businesses' own websites that came up first, good or bad.

2. 2 What we found

   Most performed poorly. Two in three were too slow to load on a phone, and the typical visitor waited more than six seconds to see anything useful. Nearly one in three had no phone number you could tap to call. Some were clearly out of date, three no longer worked at all, and a third had no Google listing linking to them.

3. 3 What it means

   Slow loading is a hidden cost. Nobody tells you they gave up waiting: they go back and call the next business on the list, and you never know they were there. Every one of these problems means fewer people getting in touch, from customers who had already found you.

The good news is that none of it is hard to get right. A website built for a trade business can start showing in under a second, put your number one tap away and link to your Google listing from the start. We’re not naming anyone: these are working businesses with websites made in good faith, often years ago.

What we found, and why it matters

• 2 in 3

  were too slow to load on a phone

  65 of 95 took more than 4 seconds to show their main content, which Google counts as poor. Only 16 met Google's target of 2.5 seconds.

  Why it matters: Someone looking for a trade on their phone won't wait. If your page still isn't ready, they go back and tap the next result, often a competitor.

  What to do: Our free health check runs the same test on your site and shows what's slowing it down.

• 6.4s

  the typical wait

  Before a visitor on a phone could see the main part of the home page.

  Why it matters: That's a customer who has found you and wants to ring you, waiting six seconds before they can.

  What to do: Google's target is 2.5 seconds, but faster is better: ours shows the useful part in under a second. Our free health check tells you where you are.

• 2.2 MB

  the typical home page

  35 weighed more than 3 MB. The heaviest weighed 70 MB.

  Why it matters: Every megabyte has to come down the visitor's phone signal, so heavy pages are slow pages, and they use up people's mobile data.

  What to do: A trade home page can do its job in well under 1 MB. Photos are the place to start.

• 1 in 3

  had no tap-to-call

  29 of 96 home pages had no phone number a customer could tap. It was plain text, an image, or missing.

  Why it matters: On a phone, ringing should take one tap. Make people copy or remember your number and some won't bother.

  What to do: Ask whoever looks after your site to make your number a link. It's a small job.

• 1 in 3

  used a cookie banner tool

  31 of 96. Most sites loaded tools from Google, and 14 loaded advertising tracking.

  Why it matters: It's one more thing in the way when someone wants to get in touch, often asking permission for tracking the site doesn't need.

  What to do: Take out tracking you don't use, and the banner may go with it.

• 22

  had no Google listing we could find

  And 10 more had a listing that didn't link to their website. 65 of 97 were linked.

  Why it matters: When someone searches for a trade near them, Google often shows a map of local businesses near the top. Without a listing you're not on it, and without the link they can't get to your site from it.

  What to do: Set up your free Google Business Profile, and link it to your site. Our free health check shows whether yours is linked.

Three of the 100 no longer exist: they still came up in search, but the address leads nowhere. One more showed visitors a security warning before the page.

Tap-to-call sounds like a detail, but on a phone, where many of your customers will be looking for you, it’s the difference between ringing you and not:

Call us on 01632 960 123 for a free quote.

Plain text

Copy it, or remember it and type it in. Some won't bother.

Call now Call 01632 960 123

A call button

One tap and it's ringing.

Seconds feel like minutes

Think about the last time you tapped a link on your phone and waited for the page to appear. Two seconds feels like a wait. Five feels broken. By six, plenty of people have gone back and tapped the next result, often a competitor.

That’s the typical experience on these sites: someone has found you, wants to ring you, and for six seconds the page isn’t ready. Our guide on why website speed matters sets out what that costs.

It’s what you look at while you wait

The wait isn’t the only problem. It’s what you see during it.

There are two ways to keep a customer waiting. You can show them a blank or half-loaded page until everything has arrived. Or you can show them the useful things first, one after another in a sensible order, so they have something to read and act on while the rest of the page loads in the background.

On the typical site, something appeared after about 2 seconds, but only part of the page, such as a logo or a menu. The main content took another four seconds to arrive. In between, the customer is looking at the outline of a page that isn’t ready. On 18 sites the screen stayed completely blank for more than 3 seconds.

That’s how we build our trades websites. On the same test, a trades site built by us shows who you are, what you do and how to ring you in under a second.

Heavier pages are slower

Every dot below is one home page. The further right, the heavier the page. The higher up, the better Google’s speed score. The heavy pages sit low.

• 80

  typical speed score under 1 MB

  Out of 100, for home pages lighter than 1 MB.

• 60

  typical speed score over 3 MB

  For home pages heavier than 3 MB.

Pages only get heavier

Across the web, the typical mobile home page weighed 845 KB in 2015 and about 2.6 MB in 2025, roughly three times as much (Web Almanac). Nothing makes a page smaller unless someone decides it should be. Every plugin, tracking tool, font, slider and full-size photo adds a little, and nothing takes it away.

Where the weight comes from

Images are the biggest part of a typical home page. Here’s how it breaks down, with ours on the same scale.

• Photos, about half of it. The 70 MB page had five photos of more than 5 MB each, straight from a phone’s camera. Resized to the width of a screen, each would be a few hundred KB and look the same.
• Add-ons from other companies. The typical page loaded over half a megabyte of code, including analytics, tag managers, chat widgets, maps, social media feeds, and the cookie banner that asks permission for them. The typical home page loaded something from four other companies.
• Age. About half were WordPress sites, many with years of plugins added and never taken away. 17 still showed a copyright year of 2023 or earlier.

How ours compare

We tested our own work the same way: one of our trades websites, built like every one we make, through the same Google test, the same week.

The typical Suffolk trade site against a trades site built by Suffolk Design, on the same test

Measure	Typical Suffolk trade site	Built by Suffolk Design
Something on screen, on a phone	1.8 seconds	0.9 seconds
Main content on screen	6.4 seconds	1.7 seconds
Home page weight	2.2 MB	0.16 MB
Google speed score (out of 100)	70	100

The typical figures are the middle of the 95 sites Google could test.

That’s by design. We don’t hand over an off-the-shelf site full of plugins, trackers and extras you don’t need, won’t use and may not even know are there. We build each site with only what it needs, and check that it stays that way.

Our sites have no cookie banner either, and you can still see how your website is doing, how many people visited, where they found you and how many got in touch, while respecting your customers’ privacy. It takes a little thought about what you really need to know, not catch-all tracking that gathers everything it can about your customers, including plenty you’ll never use, and a pop-up asking their permission for it. Our cookie banner guide explains how.

What to do about it

Check where you are. Our free health check runs the same Google speed test on your site and explains the results in plain English.

If your site is in reasonable shape, a few fixes go a long way: make your number tappable, shrink your photos to the width they’re shown at, take out tracking and add-ons you don’t use (our cookie banner guide explains what needs a banner), and link your Google listing to your site.

If it’s slow, heavy and years old, patching it can cost more than starting again. A website built for a trade business gets all of this right from the start: fast on a phone, your number one tap away, no cookie banner, linked to your Google listing, and your own figures showing who got in touch.

How we did it

• Which sites: 10 trades, each searched in 5 of 10 Suffolk towns: Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Stowmarket, Sudbury, Haverhill, Newmarket, Woodbridge and Beccles. From each search, the first 2 results that were a local business’s own website (not a directory such as Checkatrade or Yell, not Facebook, not a national chain), based within about 15 miles. 100 sites, 10 per trade. Our own clients were left out.
• Bias: these are sites that come up in search, so if anything they’re better than average. Businesses with no website, or one Google can’t find, aren’t counted.
• Speed and weight: Google’s PageSpeed Insights, mobile, once per home page, on 5 November 2026. It tests on a simulated mid-range phone on a slower mobile connection, so visitors with good signal may see faster times, and scores move a few points between tests. “Main content” is Google’s Largest Contentful Paint: 2.5 seconds or less is good, more than 4 is poor.
• Everything else: one visit to each home page, looking only at what any visitor can see. Tap-to-call means a phone link, not just a number in the text. Google listings were found with Google’s own Places search, and checked by hand where unclear.
• Out of 100: 3 sites no longer existed and one wouldn’t display for Google’s test, so speed figures are out of 95 and home page checks out of 96.

We’ll check the same 100 again next year, to see what’s changed.