stcusa.com website review

13 files block the first paint until they finish downloading. Deferring or inlining them could save about 5.7 s.

About 299 KiB of JavaScript is downloaded but never used on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 2.1 s faster on a phone.

34 files are served with short cache lifetimes, so returning visitors download them again (437 KiB).

About 198 KiB of CSS is downloaded but never applied on this page. Google estimates it would make the page about 1.1 s faster on a phone.

Your mobile performance score is 52 (desktop: 84). Pages that score under 90 lose visitors before the first paint.

8 third-party services load with your homepage (Google Tag Manager, Optanon and cloudfront.net and others), adding 1.1 MB and 810 ms of main-thread time.

3 images could be 74 KiB smaller with modern formats (WebP or AVIF) and sizes that fit a phone screen. Google estimates it would make the page about 600 ms faster on a phone.

Google Tag Manager costs a phone 340 ms of main-thread work and 366 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.

A phone's processor spends 2.0 s on main-thread work while loading, 1.1 s of it running JavaScript. Above 2 s, taps and scrolls feel sluggish.

Optanon costs a phone 96 ms of main-thread work and 308 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.

Polyfills for old browsers add 31 KiB JavaScript that modern phones do not need. Google estimates it would make the page about 200 ms faster on a phone.

6 long tasks block the main thread while loading, the longest for 173 ms. During a long task the page ignores taps.

12 KiB could be saved by minifying CSS.

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

27 KiB could be saved by minifying JavaScript.

Desktop scores 84 but mobile only 52. A gap that wide usually means heavy scripts and images that hit phones hardest.

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.

Real Chrome users on phones do not pass Google's Core Web Vitals on this page (28-day field data from the Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab)). Google uses this in ranking.

The first text or image appears after 9.1 s on a phone. Good is under 1.8 s.

Your largest element takes 14.5 s to render on a phone. Google's threshold for “good” is 2.5 s. The largest element is the image.

The page becomes fully interactive after 14.5 s. Good is under 3.8 s.

Visually, the page fills in at 9.1 s (Speed Index). Good is under 3.4 s.

Real visitors wait 883 ms for your server to start answering (75th percentile). Good is under 800 ms.

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

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-10, real Chrome visitors' tap response (inp) went from 95 ms to 99 ms at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

Over the last 25 four-week periods to 2026-10-10, real Chrome visitors' largest content (lcp) went from 1.9 s to 1.9 s at the 75th percentile (Chrome UX Report (opens in a new tab) history).

2 images (181 KiB) 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.

By the Sustainable Web Design model, a visit to your homepage emits about 0.50 g of CO₂e: 59.9 kg a year at 10,000 visits a month. It scales with page weight, so every byte cut lowers it.

2 elements use ARIA attributes their role does not allow, which confuses screen readers.

Certain ARIA roles must contain particular children: 2 elements on the page fail this check, rated critical by axe-core.

ARIA attributes must conform to valid values: 2 elements on the page fail this check, rated critical by axe-core.

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

ARIA input fields must have an accessible name: 2 elements on the page fail this check, rated serious by axe-core.

Interactive controls must not be nested: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated serious by axe-core.

4 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.

1 form field has no label, so screen readers announce an empty box and autofill guesses.

Elements marked as presentational should be consistently ignored: 2 elements on the page fail this check, rated minor by axe-core.

ARIA role should be appropriate for the element: 1 element on the page fails this check, rated minor by axe-core.

6 links use generic text like “click here” or “learn more”, which tells Google nothing about the page behind them.

3 links have no real href, so search engines can't follow them.

The homepage links to 53 pages on stcusa.com and 14 external pages.

https://www.stcusa.com/continuing-education/iar and https://www.stcusa.com/continuing-education/firm-element all use the title “Investment Adviser CE Requirements | STC”. Search engines can't tell which page to show for a search, so each competes with the others.

https://www.stcusa.com/sie/colleges-universities, https://www.stcusa.com/sie and https://www.stcusa.com/live-virtual-tutoring have no meta description, so Google writes the search snippet from whatever text it finds.

https://www.stcusa.com/continuing-education/iar and https://www.stcusa.com/continuing-education/firm-element use the same meta description. A description written for each page earns more clicks.

We fetched 15 pages linked from your homepage (of 35 found) and read each the way a search engine does.

5 of 16 tappable elements near the top of the page are smaller than 24 px, hard to hit with a thumb.

1 third-party cookie is set on load; browsers are restricting these, so whatever relies on them breaks.

2 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 ()”.

Chrome logged issues while loading the page (“Cookie”).

On a phone, there is no call to action on the first screen: visitors have to scroll to find out what to do next.

Social proof on the homepage: 14 testimonial or review blocks. Pairing it with named testimonials or customer logos makes it far more convincing.

There is no form on the homepage, so every lead has to click through to another page first.

The homepage carries about 1,573 words of visible text.

Before a visitor clicks anything, the page loads Google Tag Manager and HubSpot (measured from a US location before any click). A consent tool (OneTrust) is installed; check it blocks these until visitors agree where the law requires it.

Opening the homepage sets 17 cookies (measured from a US location before any click).

Loading the homepage contacts 28 hosts run by other companies (fonts, scripts, analytics, ads), each of which sees the visitor's IP address.