How We Rebuilt a Church Website: From Bloated and Slow to Secure and Lightning-Fast

Central Baptist Church Website Transformation

💡 Why Website Speed Matters

• 53% of users abandon a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load (Google)
• A 0.1s speed improvement can increase conversions by 8.4% (Google/Deloitte)
• Google uses Core Web Vitals like LCP, CLS, and TBT as official ranking factors (Google Search Central)

To understand the key speed metrics Google cares about — like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Total Blocking Time (TBT) — check out Google’s Core Web Vitals overview.

Speed doesn’t just feel better — it ranks better, converts better, and earns more trust.

🧱 Challenge: Performance Was a Problem

The original WiX site scored 69 on Google’s mobile PageSpeed Insights, with a 6.9s Largest Contentful Paint — well above the recommended 2.5s. Mobile visitors were likely to bounce before the page finished loading.

✅ Solution:

We rebuilt the site using Hugo and deployed it via Netlify and Cloudflare CDN. The new site now scores 95 on mobile, with an LCP of 2.9s — delivering a fast, responsive experience across all devices.

📷 Mobile Performance Before/After:

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After

📷 Desktop Performance Before/After:

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After

🧱 Challenge: Hidden Technical Debt Was Slowing Everything Down

Google Lighthouse flagged numerous backend inefficiencies:

• Unused JavaScript

• Legacy JS served to modern browsers

• Duplicate code modules

• Inefficient image delivery

• More than 4 preconnects slowing DNS resolution

• Excessive client-side JavaScript

These issues not only impacted performance scores — they affected real-world user experience, SEO rankings, and visitor trust.

✅ Solution:

We stripped out every unnecessary script, removed bloated tracking code, optimized asset delivery, and rebuilt the site using Hugo — the world’s fastest static site generator. The result is a clean, lightning-fast site, scoring 95–100 across the board without sacrificing maintainability or developer efficiency.

📷 Google Audit Before/After:

Before

After

🧱 Challenge: Technical Bloat & Console Errors

The site made 136 network requests and loaded 5.3MB of assets — far too heavy for a simple church site. The console was filled with errors from bloated third-party scripts.

✅ Solution:

We reduced the site to just 21 network requests and 1.4MB total size, with zero console errors. Every line of code is clean, secure, and intentionally written.

📷 Network Requests Before/After:

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After

📷 Console Errors Before/After:

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After

🧱 Challenge: High Ongoing Costs

The church was paying $34.57/month for WiX + Ascend, with little to no real support, and limited control over their own content.

✅ Solution:

We moved them to Netlify (free nonprofit hosting), Decap CMS (free for nonprofits), and Cloudflare DNS — reducing their monthly cost to $0. Content editing is now fast, simple, and version-controlled.

🧱 Challenge: Limited Customization & Ownership

WiX templates made customization difficult. Every change had to happen through a laggy editor, and the church had no ownership of its codebase.

✅ Solution:

We built the new site using Hugo with full source control. The church now owns 100% of its site and can update it freely through a visual CMS.

📈 The Result: A Faster, Cheaper, More Reliable Website

Speed doesn’t just feel better — it ranks better, converts better, and earns more trust.