Speed is not a project. It is a habit.
PRD Burleigh Heads is a real estate agency on the southern Gold Coast, part of the PRD national network. Buyers and renters browse live listings on its website, including on phones.
We didn’t build this site. We inherited it, slow and unreliable. The interesting part is not that it got fast. It is that it kept getting faster.
This account draws on WP Creative’s published PRD Burleigh Heads delivery record. Reported outcomes describe that engagement; they are not a forecast for another website.
The result, in three numbers
24 to 93.
Mobile PageSpeed score, live site. Source: Google PageSpeed Insights, August 2024 against August 2026.
57 to 99.
Desktop PageSpeed score, same tests.
Staged performance work.
Changes were tested away from the live site before deployment. The published record supports the process; it does not establish a present-day security guarantee.
The commercial problem
For an agency, the website is a shop window that changes every day. Listings arrive automatically from an external property platform. If the feed breaks, new homes do not appear. If the page is slow, a buyer on their phone moves on.
When we took the site over, PageSpeed scored it 24 on mobile. Average load time was 7.55 seconds, with some checks over ten. The published case describes repeated availability faults before active monitoring was established. Listings failed to sync. A broad plugin stack needed constant patching.
The agency’s team was relying on outside help to work out what had broken, after it broke.
The call we made
A rebuild was the obvious recommendation. We didn’t make it. The listings feed worked, the agency’s process worked, and a rebuild would have put both at risk for months.
Instead:
- Stabilise first. Resolve the immediate availability and security issues, restore listings that were not syncing, and set up staging and local environments so nothing is tested on the live site again.
- Then a focused performance sprint. Done on staging, deployed once proven. Load time fell from 7.55 to 2.91 seconds in the first optimisation period.
- Then keep it there. Uptime monitoring and alerts, daily security scans, rolling backups, updates, database optimisation, and performance tracked month by month.
When the property feed failed, my team worked out whether the fault was the website or the external platform, and dealt with the provider directly. The agency did not have to translate between two technical teams.
“Anyone can make a site fast for a launch screenshot. The score that matters is the one two years later.”
Nirmal
Faster every year
Average page load went from 7.55 seconds to 1.57 seconds across the engagement, measured by the same monitoring tool from March 2024 to July 2026.
It did not happen in one go. It happened because performance was watched every month. When a regression appeared, monitoring caught it and the team brought load times back down without the agency having to raise it.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile PageSpeed (live site) | 24 | 93 |
| Desktop PageSpeed (live site) | 57 | 99 |
| Average page load | 7.55 s | 1.57 s |
PageSpeed: Google PSI lab scores, live site at both ends. Load time: ManageWP monitoring, a different tool and window.
A PageSpeed score is a lab score out of 100, not a load time. So 24 to 93 is a better score, not a site that got “288% faster”. Load time is measured separately, in seconds, by the monitoring tool: 7.55 to 1.57 on average.
What I learned
1. Don’t sell a rebuild to fix a maintenance problem. A slow site is a diagnosis to make, not evidence that a full rebuild is necessary. I wrote more on when a redesign is actually the answer.
2. The feed is the business. On a listings site, an integration failure costs more than a slow page. Monitor what makes money first.
3. Own the whole problem. Clients do not care whose system broke. They care that someone takes it from diagnosis to fixed.
Work with me
Is your site slow, and is someone telling you the answer is a rebuild? Let’s look at it first. Ongoing speed and security work like this sits inside my team’s website support and maintenance.