I thought I needed better design in my web dev projects.
Then I thought I needed more features.
Then I thought I needed better SEO, faster hosting, smarter tools.
I was wrong.
The real problem wasn’t what I added — it was what I never removed.
Every site was overloaded with plugins, scripts, animations, pop-ups, trackers, and “nice-to-have” features that quietly killed performance. Each one felt harmless. Together, they were dragging everything down: load time, user experience, conversions, even rankings.
Once I stripped the sites back to what actually mattered, everything changed.
Pages loaded faster.
Users stayed longer.
Conversions went up.
Maintenance became easier.
The lesson hit hard: speed in web dev isn’t about optimization — it’s about restraint.
If your website feels slow, bloated, or fragile, the answer probably isn’t another tool or feature. It’s the courage to simplify, cut the excess, and let the core do its job.
I wish I’d learned that before building five websites the hard way — but now I won’t make that mistake again.
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