How I Improved Website Performance by 70% (opens in new tab)

I've been working on web projects long enough to know that performance rarely gets the attention it deserves until something breaks or someone complains. In this case, nobody complained outright but when I ran the site through Lighthouse for the first time, the score made me wince. This is the story of how I audited, diagnosed, and systematically improved a business website that was quietly bleeding visitors because of performance problems nobody had thought to look for. The Starting Point Th...