Slow pages cost you trust before anyone's even read your copy. We track down what's actually making your site sluggish, on Umbraco or anything else, and fix it properly.
Marketing leads want a site that converts, and a score they can defend to the board without flinching. IT managers want a straight answer on what's actually causing the drag, not a vague "it's probably the server" shrug. Whoever's fielding the complaints just wants them to stop. For most of them, the real measure isn't a score at all, it's whether the browsing experience feels fast to an actual visitor.
We check everything that affects how fast your site loads: the page layouts, your hosting, how quickly the site fetches its information, and the content itself. We look at every page, because most visitors land on an inner page rather than your homepage. Umbraco is our speciality, but we take the same care whatever your site is built on. A faster site is more pleasant to use, and it also helps you rank in Google and keeps visitors from leaving before they buy or get in touch.
Our approach to successful projects
Before we touch anything, we look at how your site actually behaves under real traffic, not a single homepage test. That means checking load times across your highest-traffic templates, not just the front door, alongside Core Web Vitals, mobile performance and server response times. On Umbraco specifically, we check your caching configuration, how content queries are structured, and whether your site's search and indexing setup is affecting performance. We also ask about the business side: which pages actually drive enquiries or bookings, what your board or team already believes about the site's speed, and what's already been tried. The aim is a clear, evidenced picture of what's slow and why it matters, before we propose fixing anything. Think of this stage as your performance audit, the diagnostic work that tells us what's actually worth fixing.
Not every fix is worth making, and we'll say so. We weigh each finding against the effort to fix it and the actual business impact, a slow-loading carousel on a rarely-visited page matters less than a sluggish enquiry form. Where output caching would help, we work out whether in-memory caching is enough or whether a distributed setup makes sense for your hosting and traffic. We also flag anything Google's own tooling suggests that we wouldn't actually recommend, over-compressing images until they look poor is a real trade-off, not a free win. You get a prioritised plan, not a wall of technical findings with no order to them.
This is where the fixes actually happen. On Umbraco, that typically means configuring output caching properly, reviewing the database queries and value converters doing more work than they should, and building sensible image compression and resizing into the content pipeline so editors don't have to think about it. On the front end, we defer what doesn't need to load immediately, tidy up render-blocking scripts, and make sure visible content appears before everything else catches up behind it. None of this happens in isolation. We test as we go, on real devices and real connections, so we know a fix has actually worked before moving to the next one.
Speed problems creep back in if nobody understands what caused them the first time, so we don't just hand over a fixed site and disappear. We explain what we changed and why, in plain English, and show your team where the risk usually reappears, most often through oversized image uploads or a new third-party script bolted on without anyone checking the cost. If content editors are the ones adding media day to day, we make sure the defaults do the right thing automatically, rather than relying on someone remembering a rule three months from now. You end up with a team that understands its own site, not one still waiting on us to explain it.
Once the fixes are live, we keep watching. Performance isn't a one-off project, new content, new integrations and a growing site will always pull load times back the wrong way eventually. We monitor Core Web Vitals and load times across your key templates on an ongoing basis, so a slow creep gets caught before it shows up in your conversion numbers. If you're already a Gecko support client, this sits inside that relationship directly. If you're not, we'll tell you plainly whether ongoing monitoring is worth it for a site your size, rather than upselling it regardless.
We configure Umbraco's output caching properly, whether that's caching server-rendered Razor pages or Delivery API responses if you're running headless. Done right, the server skips re-running the full rendering pipeline for repeat requests, which cuts both load times and server load under real traffic.
We also make sure caching isn't papering over a genuine problem elsewhere. Output caching is brilliant for performance, but it isn't a fix for slow underlying queries or a badly structured content tree, so we check what's underneath before switching it on. We also check that your caching setup suits your site's traffic and hosting environment, so you're getting the performance benefits without introducing unnecessary complexity.
A lot of Umbraco slowdown comes from how content is queried and structured, not the platform itself. We review your value converters, your content architecture and the queries running behind your busiest templates, looking for the inefficient ones doing far more work than the page actually needs.
Deeply nested content trees, badly scoped queries and an Examine index carrying more than it should all show up here. Where the fix is structural rather than a quick tweak, we're honest about that upfront. Some of this is a genuine rebuild of how content is organised, not a setting we can flip. We're looking for genuine performance bottlenecks here, not hypothetical ones, so anything we flag is something actually slowing your busiest pages down.
Large original images aren't necessarily a problem when your website handles them properly. We check that Umbraco's built-in image cropping and resizing features are being used correctly, so visitors get appropriately sized images without compromising quality.
We also help your content editors get the most out of the media library, including using crops and focal points effectively across different layouts. It's about getting the setup right and giving your team the confidence to manage images properly, without adding unnecessary steps to their day.
Beyond the CMS itself, we look at what's actually loading in the browser: JavaScript and CSS blocking the page from rendering, third-party scripts and chat widgets stacking up over time, and layout shifts that make a page feel unstable even if it technically loaded fast.
We defer what doesn't need to load immediately, minify what's left, and prioritise getting visible content on screen before everything else catches up. This is often where the gap between a good PageSpeed score and how a site actually feels to use gets closed.
We also check which JavaScript libraries you're relying on, since it's common to find several doing the same job, or one loaded in full for a feature that only needs a small part of it, and bring older markup up to current web standards where that's a quick, worthwhile win.
Sometimes the problem isn't your website's code, it's the hosting underneath it. If we suspect that's the case, we can investigate server response times, hosting capacity and how your setup handles traffic. We'll help you understand whether your hosting could be limiting performance and what improvements might be worth considering.
That doesn't automatically mean moving servers or adding a CDN. Sometimes a few sensible adjustments are all that's needed, and sometimes upgrading your hosting is the better long-term option. We'll talk through the possibilities, explain the likely benefits and help you decide what's worth pursuing, without recommending changes that add cost or complexity for little real-world gain.
A one-off performance fix doesn't mean your site will stay fast forever. New content, integrations and updates can gradually affect how quickly things load. For clients on a higher-level Gecko support package, we can offer ongoing performance monitoring to help spot potential issues before they become bigger problems.
This can include tracking Core Web Vitals, page load times and server response times across your key pages, giving you a clearer picture of how your site performs over time. We'll help you understand what's changed, what might be causing it and whether anything needs attention, rather than leaving you to decipher a dashboard full of numbers.
We configure Umbraco's output caching properly, whether that's caching server-rendered Razor pages or Delivery API responses if you're running headless. Done right, the server skips re-running the full rendering pipeline for repeat requests, which cuts both load times and server load under real traffic.
We also make sure caching isn't papering over a genuine problem elsewhere. Output caching is brilliant for performance, but it isn't a fix for slow underlying queries or a badly structured content tree, so we check what's underneath before switching it on. We also check that your caching setup suits your site's traffic and hosting environment, so you're getting the performance benefits without introducing unnecessary complexity.
A lot of Umbraco slowdown comes from how content is queried and structured, not the platform itself. We review your value converters, your content architecture and the queries running behind your busiest templates, looking for the inefficient ones doing far more work than the page actually needs.
Deeply nested content trees, badly scoped queries and an Examine index carrying more than it should all show up here. Where the fix is structural rather than a quick tweak, we're honest about that upfront. Some of this is a genuine rebuild of how content is organised, not a setting we can flip. We're looking for genuine performance bottlenecks here, not hypothetical ones, so anything we flag is something actually slowing your busiest pages down.
Large original images aren't necessarily a problem when your website handles them properly. We check that Umbraco's built-in image cropping and resizing features are being used correctly, so visitors get appropriately sized images without compromising quality.
We also help your content editors get the most out of the media library, including using crops and focal points effectively across different layouts. It's about getting the setup right and giving your team the confidence to manage images properly, without adding unnecessary steps to their day.
Beyond the CMS itself, we look at what's actually loading in the browser: JavaScript and CSS blocking the page from rendering, third-party scripts and chat widgets stacking up over time, and layout shifts that make a page feel unstable even if it technically loaded fast.
We defer what doesn't need to load immediately, minify what's left, and prioritise getting visible content on screen before everything else catches up. This is often where the gap between a good PageSpeed score and how a site actually feels to use gets closed.
We also check which JavaScript libraries you're relying on, since it's common to find several doing the same job, or one loaded in full for a feature that only needs a small part of it, and bring older markup up to current web standards where that's a quick, worthwhile win.
Sometimes the problem isn't your website's code, it's the hosting underneath it. If we suspect that's the case, we can investigate server response times, hosting capacity and how your setup handles traffic. We'll help you understand whether your hosting could be limiting performance and what improvements might be worth considering.
That doesn't automatically mean moving servers or adding a CDN. Sometimes a few sensible adjustments are all that's needed, and sometimes upgrading your hosting is the better long-term option. We'll talk through the possibilities, explain the likely benefits and help you decide what's worth pursuing, without recommending changes that add cost or complexity for little real-world gain.
A one-off performance fix doesn't mean your site will stay fast forever. New content, integrations and updates can gradually affect how quickly things load. For clients on a higher-level Gecko support package, we can offer ongoing performance monitoring to help spot potential issues before they become bigger problems.
This can include tracking Core Web Vitals, page load times and server response times across your key pages, giving you a clearer picture of how your site performs over time. We'll help you understand what's changed, what might be causing it and whether anything needs attention, rather than leaving you to decipher a dashboard full of numbers.
Cristiano Martins, Senior Full Stack Developer at Gecko
[PLACEHOLDER: no confirmed performance case study with real before/after metrics currently exists. Section held here structurally until one's available.]
[CLIENT NAME/SECTOR] had a site that scored well on paper but felt slow to the people actually using it. We tracked the real cause back to [ISSUE], fixed it, and measured the difference on the templates that actually mattered to their traffic, not just the homepage.
No. Umbraco itself isn't the bottleneck in most cases we see. Problems usually come from how a site's been implemented: unoptimised database queries, an Examine index carrying more than it needs to, hosting that hasn't kept pace with the site's growth, or third-party scripts added over time without anyone checking the cost. Older Umbraco sites can carry extra baggage too, with ageing dependencies and outdated packages potentially adding to performance problems. The platform gets blamed because it's the thing everyone can see, when the actual cause is usually a few layers underneath it.
Only if performance is part of the brief from day one. A redesign focused purely on how a site looks can just as easily make speed worse, more scripts, heavier visuals, a new set of images nobody's compressed yet. If speed matters to you, say so before the design work starts, not after launch when you're wondering why nothing's changed.
It can help, particularly with hosting-related bottlenecks, but it isn't a fix on its own. A badly structured content tree or an inefficient query is still a badly structured content tree or an inefficient query, wherever it's hosted. We'd look at implementation first, then talk about whether Cloud is the right move for your setup.
Treat it as one input, not gospel. Google's test conditions are deliberately harsh, closer to an older phone on a patchy connection than how many of your actual visitors browse, which is why even major websites can score poorly. PageSpeed Insights is useful for identifying potential problems, like slow loading, layout shifts or poor interactivity. But not every recommendation is worth following. Over-compressing images to squeeze out a few extra points, for example, could leave them looking noticeably worse without making much difference to your visitors. We'd rather test how your site performs in the real world, then focus on improvements that actually matter. Scores can also vary between individual tests, so we look at patterns over time rather than getting hung up on a single number.
Umbraco is our speciality, and it's where we deliver our best work. Our experience with website performance means we understand the challenges that can affect other platforms too, but we're not going to pretend we're experts in everything. If your website isn't built on Umbraco, we're happy to have an initial conversation and tell you whether we're the right people to help. Sometimes that means recommending a different approach or pointing you towards someone better suited to the job. We'd rather give you the right advice than take on work that isn't the right fit.
We start by looking at how your site behaves under real traffic across your key templates, not just the homepage, alongside your hosting, your content architecture and (on Umbraco) your caching and indexing setup. You get back a clear, prioritised picture of what's actually slow, why, and what it would take to fix, before any work begins on fixing it.
It depends on what we find. A caching and image optimisation pass can often be turned around quickly. Something structural, like a content architecture rebuild or a set of genuinely inefficient database queries, takes longer, and we'll always tell you which kind of problem you've got before quoting a timeline. Whether it's a full site speed optimisation project or a narrower fix, we'll be upfront about the likely timeframe before you commit to anything.
Rarely one bad decision. It's usually a gradual build-up: tracking scripts and chat widgets added one at a time, images being displayed without proper optimisation, ageing packages, and hosting that hasn't been revisited since launch. None of it looks dramatic on its own. Together, it adds up to a site that feels noticeably slower than it did on day one.
Both, where it's relevant. Sometimes the site itself is well optimised and the ceiling is genuinely the hosting underneath it. We'll review server response times and how your setup copes with traffic, and say plainly if that's where the real problem sits, rather than only working on what's easiest for us to change.
Get in touch and tell us what's feeling slow, or send over a link to the pages you're worried about. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth a full audit. If it is, we'll agree the scope with you before anything's booked.
If your site feels slower than it should, whether that's a hunch, a dropping conversion rate, or a PageSpeed score you can't quite explain, we'll take a proper look before recommending anything. No generic "add a CDN" advice, no upselling monitoring you don't need. Just a clear, honest read on what's actually happening and what it would take to fix it properly, on Umbraco or whatever you're running.
