learndirect.com website review

7 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 2.5 s.

A phone's processor spends 4.3 s on main-thread work while loading, 2.6 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

About 808 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 450 ms faster on a phone.

39 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (1.2 MB).

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Facebook, Hubspot and TikTok and others), adding 1.2 MB and 1.1 s of main-thread time.

Your mobile performance score is 56. Pages that score under 90 lose visitors before the first paint.

16 images could be 878 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen.

Facebook costs a phone 319 ms of main-thread work and 344 KiB of downloads while your page loads. Loading it after the page is usable, or only on the pages that need it, takes that off the critical path.

About 40 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 300 ms faster on a phone.

Hubspot costs a phone 244 ms of main-thread work and 520 KiB of downloads while your page loads. Loading it after the page is usable, or only on the pages that need it, takes that off the critical path.

The page has 2,095 HTML elements. Above 1,500, rendering and every interaction get slower on phones.

17 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 243 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

Web fonts hide text while they load. Setting font-display: swap shows text immediately (about 50 ms).

Polyfills for old browsers add 22 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need.

Critical files load one after another instead of in parallel (3 chains). Preconnecting to key origins and preloading the hero image shortens the chain.

Scripts make the browser recalculate the layout repeatedly while the page loads, which wastes processor time on phones.

The page becomes fully interactive after 19.5 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Scripts block taps and scrolling for 804 ms in total while the page loads. Good is under 200 ms.

The first text or image appears after 3.4 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 6.2 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Your largest element takes 4.0 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image “learndirect.com - online training courses and qualifications”.

3 images have no width and height attributes, so the layout jumps as each one loads.

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-24, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 2.0 s to 2.1 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Your homepage downloads 6.1 MB in 173 requests on a phone: images 3.3 MB (82), scripts 2.4 MB (37) and fonts 167 KiB (7). Under 2 MB keeps phones on slow connections fast.

19 images (2.2 MB) are JPEG, PNG or GIF. The same pictures as WebP or AVIF are usually much smaller at the same quality, and every current browser shows them.

18 images are downloaded at several times the size a phone draws them, for example mental-health-faculty.jpg at 900 px wide, shown at 288 px. Resized copies would save about 176 KiB.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 1.72 g of CO₂e: 206.2 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

4 buttons have no accessible name, so screen readers announce just “button”.

16 text elements don't have enough contrast against the background to read easily, especially outdoors on a phone.

Elements must only use permitted ARIA attributes: 7 elements on the page fail this check, rated serious by axe-core.

1 link inside paragraphs relies on colour alone to stand out.

2 images have no alt text, which hurts accessibility and image search.

Landmarks should have a unique role or role/label/title (i.e. accessible name) combination: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

The viewport tag blocks pinch-zoom, which low-vision visitors rely on.

All page content should be contained by landmarks: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated moderate by axe-core.

36 elements hidden from screen readers can still receive keyboard focus.

9 form fields have no label, so screen readers announce an empty box and autofill guesses.

ARIA role should be appropriate for the element: 13 elements on the page fail this check, rated minor by axe-core.

1 visible link has no text or label, so screen readers cannot say where it goes.

Elements with visible text labels do not have matching accessible names. (2 elements).

There is no <h1>, so neither visitors nor Google get a clear main headline.

1 link use generic text like “click here” or “learn more”, which tells Google nothing about the page behind it.

The homepage links to 196 pages on learndirect.com and 12 external pages.

https://www.learndirect.com/category/aat-qualifications is marked noindex but linked from your homepage. If it is meant to be found, remove the noindex.

https://www.learndirect.com/category/nursing-faculty has no <h1> headline, so visitors and search engines get no clear main topic.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 105 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

1 image failed to load on a phone, for example https://bat.bing.com/action/0?ti=26014413&Ver=2&mid=7ebb643d-fe6e-415a-bce4-76890bf74c03&bo=3&sid=2b0dbf50d34611f1946031872739e807&vid=2b0dc900d34611f19e1051c1f65d9c1d&vids=0&msclkid=N&pi=918639831&lg.

5 errors were logged to the browser console while the page loaded, for example “Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 ()”.

3 images are displayed at the wrong aspect ratio, so they look stretched or squashed.

Large scripts ship without source maps.

Your homepage shows a street address but no LocalBusiness JSON-LD, so Google and AI assistants have to guess your address, hours and phone from the page text.

Your longest form asks for 9 fields (4 required). Every extra field lowers completion.

The homepage shows no opening hours. If customers visit or call, show when.

There is no link to Google or Apple Maps. A directions link is one tap for a phone visitor.

No guarantee or risk reducer (money-back, free trial, no credit card) is mentioned, which is often what tips a hesitant visitor.

The homepage carries about 2,045 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Ads, Google Analytics, Hotjar, HubSpot and Meta Pixel and 5 mores (measured from a US location before any click). A consent tool (HubSpot cookie banner) is installed; check it blocks these until visitors agree where the law requires it.

Opening the homepage sets 31 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 49 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.