Who Makes the Fastest Websites in Philadelphia?

When you log onto your computer, you will do so with a plan of action in mind. Oftentimes this plan includes visiting a particular website, or multiple websites. With where technology is at in today’s age, nothing is more frustrating than sitting and watching the computer screen slowly fill with the various parts of a website you are attempting to access. What’s more likely the case is that after several seconds of waiting for the screen to pull up the site, you’ll close out and try another similar site, never to return to the first.

The fact of the matter is, website speed is incredibly important. The speed of a page is determined by the web design techniques and the web development skills used to create the website. Certain features of a site may inherently contribute to its overall speed, such as responsiveness of the website. Website speed is not a matter of opinion, nor is it one of speculation. Google, the world’s most prominent and powerful search engine, uses website speed as a contributing factor in its overall ranking process, and things like a site’s responsive capabilities are indeed taken into account.

Website speed is not limited to desktop browsing. Sites must be equally adept at maintaining consistent download speeds on mobile phones and tablets as well. A page must load just as fast in Philadelphia as it does in San Francisco. A website must be just as fast for new customers as it is for the clients you’ve had since days before your company even had its own custom website. The speed with which your business’s website opens and loads is the single most important factor when it comes to acquiring and maintaining customers.

The Top Reasons For A Website’s Slow Speed

While this may not have been the case in the past, but in today’s world the main contributing factor to a website’s load speed is web development. In other words, the best developer will make the best websites. It is the code that is most important, not the size or quantity of images and pictures on a page. Our website serves as a perfect example. Upon visiting our website, a video immediately loads in the background. Take note that there is little to no buffer time and the rest of the website loads simultaneously. Material by Web Design and DevelopmentYour Complete Guide to the Website Development ProcessThe Best Way to Develop Your Website This is not because of any hidden trick. It is because of well-crafted code and competent web design techniques put into place in an effective, symbiotic fashion.

Our website is that of custom creation. If your website is running on a template platform, such as Squarespace or WordPress, it’s a great disadvantage with website speed when creating sites on WordPress. There will always be the critics who point to template sites that run just as fast as a custom one, but these are either outliers in the template population sample or unskilled developers who aren’t bringing their clients the true power of a professional website design to generate income and satisfy clients both old and new. We should also add that the hosting provider will affect your website download speed as well. Cheap hosting saves you money in the short-run, but the long-run effects of hosting with a company that inhibits your business website’s full capabilities will cost you much more than a few dollars a month.

The Best Way to Measure the Speed of your Website

There are multiple ways to measure the speed of a website. One is simply trial and error. It’s often quite obvious if a website is slow or not. Just take note of how frustrated you become as you sit and stare at your cursor’s “still loading” indicators. Google, however, now offers a more precise approach to the measurement of site speed. This service can be accessed here: testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com. You simply paste the URL to your company website into the box and let Google analyze the code of your website. Upon completing its analysis, Google then provide you with a percent score (out of 100), ranking your site’s overall speed.

After the publication of this article, Google made several changes to the functionality of this service, namely, it only gives the speed of a site’s mobile version. However, it now shows how many clients were lost due to slow site speeds. If you preferred the previous version of the test, it is still available here: Google Page Speed test insights.

We at Direct Line Development understand the importance of speed and the value it brings to our customers. We posit ourselves as a web design company in Philadelphia that has the ability to generate business for our clients through online capabilities. If the sites we create are not up to our standards after using Google’s test, we send it back for web development work until the speed is improved and satisfies our site-launch criteria.

So, Who Makes the Fastest Sites in Philadelphia?

There are so many website design companies in Philadelphia that it is sometimes hard to differentiate between them all. A truism with every web design company is that their own website will serve as one of the main examples of the quality of work that they can provide their potential clients, and this is true for us as well. With this information in mind, we ran a study on the speed of the websites of Philadelphia’s top 20 website design studios. All of the sites were found using Google, but if you think that we missed a company, feel free to write in and we will add it to our list. The list was conducted using the very same speed verification tool that we mentioned above that Google offers free to all who wish to use it. The results of the study below were determined using the average speed of each company’s website and their latest ten projects.

As we previously mentioned, Google changed some of the parameters of the test we used to conduct this service. As such, we decided to add the load time of each site as well as the percentage of clients lost in comparison. Additionally, we updated the results of our initial study to see if any of the companies mentioned made changes after reading this article. Here’s what we’ve got.

Philadelphia Web Design Company Speed Rankings

The purpose of this material is not to denigrate our competitors or drive business away from them but rather to highlight these deficiencies in their work and to showcase the importance of a site’s speed in terms of its overall functionality. Many of the companies in this study have charged thousands of dollars from customers that think they are receiving something better than they are. Those companies should be strive to build the best projects for their customers, and continue to improve their own techniques.

We recommend that all companies correct the speeds of the their sites and write to us. Once the improvements are made, we will happily update their scores. If you are a member of one of the above-mentioned companies who wishes to improve their sites’ speeds but do not know how, we would gladly train your developers in our company’s internship program. We have the means and knowledge on hand to enhance their web development techniques for very low cost. Happy coding!

20th place: Studio Atlity

With an average score of only 39, this is the worst score we found in our study. While we are unaware of the individual circumstances surrounding this company, it appears that they did not get the memo of the importance of having a fast website. Update August 25, 2017: No much-needed miracle occurred. After three months, the average speed of their sites actually worsened, coming in at a score of 37. On average, the mobile versions of their sites loaded in about 8.6 seconds and their sites lose about 26.2% of their visitors due to slow speeds.

19th place: Think it First

Their score was slightly higher, leveling out at 41. Their own website has a fast enough download speed, but their various projects do not match the quality of their own and thus download much slower, pulling their entire average down. Update August 25, 2017: The average score for the past three months rose slightly to about 44, but the sites developed by this company still have the worst downloads speeds on their mobile sites, coming in at 10.5 seconds. This is costing them 28.5% of their visitors.

18th place: Delphic Digital

42, while not dead last, is nothing to write home about. When we analyzed the last 10 websites they developed, not one of them scored in the “green” zone. We’re sure that if these customers knew about this, they would be far from pleased. This score is, for a lack of better terms, bad. Update August 25, 2017: Here too, some changes were made within the framework may have helped bounce their score up from 42 to 43, but the speeds are still terrible. 10.2 seconds to download their mobile version, losing around 28.5% of their visitors. Yikes. Who in this world would truly wait 10 seconds for a website to load?

17th place: Eastern Standard

Another average of 42. While browsing their website, we were admittedly impressed by the manner in which they describe the way they work with their clients. Here’s a quote: “When you craft a website that truly serves the needs of your visitors, your SEO rankings and lead-generation capacity will increase drastically.” It’s thus unfortunate that, when analyzing the speed of the sites that they’ve created for their clients, this quote has nothing to do with reality. Update August 25, 2017: After three months, a low score has fallen even lower, grounding out at 38. It comes as no surprise that their mobile sites take 10.7 seconds to load and they lose 27.6% of their visitors during that wait time.

16th place: Happy Cog

Again, an average score of 42. And again, another company that cares about its own site much more than the quality of those it provides its customers. We simply do not understand how web development companies can take pride in this quality of work! Update August 25, 2017: This company also experienced a slip in its grades, falling to a score of 39. Equally impressive are the slow download speeds of 9.3 seconds and its loss of 26.1% of its potential customers.

15th place: Yikes

Finally upping the game to a whole 44. Their site and their projects all consistently fall into this range, and they have made quite a number of them. Consistency, however, does not mean quality. Let us remind you that the green zone - the range in which a site should fall in order to be acceptable to Google’s standards - is a site that scores at least an 85. Update August 25, 2017: The average score of their sites after three months comes to 43. The time to download their mobile websites is 8.2 seconds and they lose 26.5% of their visitors due to these deficits in speed.

14th place: Pepper Lillie

Another score of 44. We are already approaching the middle of our list and yet not a single company has remotely improved their scores to even reach the orange zone, leaving the green scoring range to be left for the very distant future. Update August 25, 2017: Hey someone is finally on the upswing with a score increase after three months to 51! The average time it takes to download mobile versions is 6.5 seconds and they lose 21.4% of their customers.

13th place: Durkan Group

With an average aggregate score of 45, we have yet another example of a website design firm whose own site is significantly faster than the speed of the sites that they create for their own clients. This means they have the capabilities, but do not consistently produce fast results. Why? Maybe cost. Maybe affordability. All, however, at the expense of quality.Update August 25, 2017: Their new average score comes in at 43. The average wait time for their mobile sites to load is 10.3 seconds and they lose 29% of their potential visitors. This is a painful figure. Only one other company on this list loses more visitors than them.

12th place: The 215 Guys

The 215 Guys. A relative well-known company in the Philadelphia area, they have an average score of 46. Interestingly, the score of three of their latest projects in particular score well-above the average of the rest. These sites are still not in the green zone, but it does demonstrate these developers may selectively intensify their efforts for certain projects while ignoring others. Update August 25, 2017: Their average score after three months dropped to 44. Their mobile sites take a whopping 14.2 seconds to load and they lose 31.5% of their visitors. WHAT?! This is the worst loss of customers on this entire list.

11th place: Digital Creative

At last we are have crossed the boundaries of the halfway mark with a score of 52! This fact actually makes us want to cry. We’ve checked hundreds of sites at this point and yet none of them have reached the green zone. What is going on? How is this happening? Update August 25, 2017: The updated average score for this company comes to 53. Their mobile download wait time is 9.4 seconds and they lose 23% of their potential visitors.

10th place: P’unk Ave

This company scored 53 on the speed test. Here is a quote from their page: “Our services focus on advancing your mission and bringing you closer to your goals.” Maybe they are also trying to help us reach our goals? If so, they are doing it very slowly. If so, they are doing it very slowly, just like they are for the rest of their clients. Update August 25, 2017: The average score for this company rose slightly to 55. Their download speed from mobile devices is 8 seconds and they lose 23.5% of their potential customers.

9th place: Roja Interactive

While now in the top ten best website design firms in Philadelphia, this company still only scores 53. We are still miles away from being deemed acceptable in Google’s eyes, the goal that each of these companies should be striving for. Update August 25, 2017: After three months, the average score of this company’s sites rose from 53 to 54. Watch out. Their average load time for their mobile sites is 8.9 seconds and their customer loss comes in at 25.5%.

8th place: Zivtech

What a surprise, another score of 53! Almost toward the middle of the top ten yet no noticeable changes have taken place. “Almost half of all users will leave a website if the mobile page does not load within three seconds.” These are not our words, they are Google’s. Update August 25, 2017: After three months, their new average score comes to 55. The average download time is 7.3 seconds and they lose 23.9% of their potential visitors.

7th place: WebpageFX

Whoa. This company just changed the game, reaching the highest score on our list yet with a whopping average of 54. Here is another quote from Google that we came across in our research “It looks like https://www.webpagefx.com/ is slow on mobile phones. Unfortunately, most people will not wait very long before leaving a slow-loading site and tapping elsewhere.” Their words, not ours. Update August 25, 2017: Unfortunately for them, their score dropped to 49. The average download time from mobile devices is 10.5 seconds and they lose 28.8% of their potential clients because of it.

6th place: CWP Design Studio

With a score of 55, CWP Design Studio is approaching the top of the charts. Yet this score, according to Google (and most users) is still severely lacking in terms of site speed and quality. Update August 25, 2017: Looks like we’re seeing some slacking here. After three months, their average site score fell from 55 to 45, a painful fall. Their mobile load-time is 9.9 seconds, costing them 27.3% of their customers.

5th place: King Design

Their score came out to 57. If we are to go by names alone, we would be left to believe that this company’s projects would be nothing short of royalty, yet their rating seems to tell a different story. Even though this company finds itself in the top 5, the score is, simply put, terrible. Update August 25, 2017: After three months we see another slight loss with their score falling to 56. Their mobile site take around 6.3 seconds to load and they lose 22.3% of their customers.

4th place: Blue Cadet

Their score also comes to 57. This is too slow. Way too slow. If these sites were tested by real people instead of Google’s algorithms, the person would surely be asleep at their desk by the time the page was fully loaded. We’re joking, of course, but the matter is relatively serious. These speeds are too slow to meet the needs of today’s fast-paced world. We actually might start to cry. Update August 25, 2017: Their average score after three months from the initial findings is 57. Their mobile sites take a shocking 10.9 seconds to load and, naturally, they lose 28.8% of their visitors because of it.

3rd place: Impart Creative

The average score of this web development company comes to 58. And so here we are in the top three. Impart Creative can happily accept their bronze medal, but we wouldn’t say that a score like this is something we’d necessarily be bragging about to our friends and family. Update August 25, 2017: While their score rose slightly to 61, their mobile load speeds still take 9 seconds, costing them 26.5% of their potential customers.

2nd place: Push 10

Hooray! At 59, Push 10 claims silver! Here’s a fun observation: the difference between 10th and 2nd place is only 6 points… none of these sites have yet to reach the green zone of Google’s standards. Update August 25, 2017: Another slight increase from 59 to 63. Their load speeds are 7.6 seconds and their customer loss comes in at 24.6%.

1st place: Direct Line Development

That’s right, first place baby! With a score of 97, Direct Line clears its competition by a long shot. We knew our sites were quality, but after such an in-depth comparison, we now really know it. We’re not only at the top of this list, but we almost double the score of our closest competitor. Again, we’d like to remind you that these scores were compiled using Google’s own tool: testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com. We did not influence these results in any way. Update August 25, 2017: Not to brag, but we rose from 92 to 93. We’ll take that any day of the week. Our mobile speeds top the list at a 4 seconds download time and we lose only around 9.6% of our potential customers.

Conclusions

We were admittedly shocked by these findings. Of course, almost all companies will proclaim that their only mission in web design is to provide quality websites to their customers in an affordable manner. They say they will bring you to the top. They say they will give you their best. These results speak otherwise. It seems that most website design studios in Philadelphia are concerned with only their own profit while ignoring the needs of their customers beyond what they are able to see.

Speed is the most important factor that contributes to a site’s success. As such, always pay attention to the speed of a web developer’s own site as well as their projects when making the decision of choosing who will design your firm’s website. You may have run your own site through Google’s speed test and found that it does not meet what Google considers to be optimal speeds. We at Direct Line Development specialize in web design and can help remedy this situation. We are prepared to give free recommendations to anyone who wishes to improve their site speed, especially if you are client of one of the sites listed above. Correcting a site’s speed requires the knowledge of a good developer, a few hours of intensive work, and a team truly committed to your success. If you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call or leave them in the comments section below!

The article was updated on August 25, 2017.