Why Website Load Speed Matters for your Business

Why does website load speed matter for my business?

Just a 1-second delay in page loading time can result in a 7% reduction in sales. Customers become frustrated by sites that take too long to load; the slower your site, the less likely they will make it to the checkout. Users form an opinion of your website in just half a second. Every year, website visitors become more and more impatient. As of 2019, nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed influences their likeliness to buy. The importance of page speed isn’t brand new; Google advised of this trend in 2010,

“Speeding up websites is important — not just to site owners, but to all Internet users. Faster sites create happy users and we’ve seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don’t just improve user experience; recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs.” – Google

Your website load speed is critically important on mobile. Your customers are most likely using their phones to browse your website and purchase your products; 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last 6 months. Having a mobile-friendly website is key to leading a new customer from discovery to conversion. If your website is slow or clunky on mobile, customers will click away; Google research shows that 73% of consumers will switch from a poorly designed mobile site to one that makes purchasing easier. Having a faster site will even help you find new customers. Because faster sites rank higher on Google Search, there’s a huge opportunity to increase your website traffic just by increasing site speed.

Time is Money

Google created a tool so you can instantly see how much revenue your slow website is costing you. Go to thinkwithgoogle.com/testmysite to see how increasing your website speed by only a few seconds could improve your bottom line. For example, the site analyzed below could increase their revenue by over $5,000 a month by improving their site speed from just 2.5 seconds to 1 second.

What’s the average load time for websites?

The average page load time for websites in the United States is 15 seconds. But that isn’t the number you should set your sights on. Google says ½ a second or about the amount of time it takes to blink is the benchmark to reach for website loading speed. The average load time of the top-ranking websites on Google is under 3 seconds. People expect instant results when they click on your website. 57% of people will leave a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

How can I find out my website load speed?

So just how fast is your website? Here are three tools we recommend for checking your page load speed:

Google Page Speed Insights

Google’s tool quickly assigns a score from 0 to 100 based on how optimized your page is for speed. You’ll want to know what Google has to say about your site because 90% of searches take place on Google’s search engine. However, the score you receive does not reflect the actual load time your customers experience. Slow servers, third-party ads, and widgets might influence the score so be sure to use additional cross-check tools.

Pingdom Website Speed Test

If you have customers all over the world, you may want to utilize this tool by Pingdom. Choose from various locations, both in the US and internationally, to see what your customers experience. You’ll receive an actual load time in seconds, as well as a variety of suggestions to help you improve!

Whichloadsfaster.com

If you’ve had a competitor in the back of your mind the whole time you’ve been reading this article, you’ve got to try this tool. Sometimes you don’t need to be the fastest in the biz, just faster than your competition. See how your website compares in just one click.

Okay, my website is slow. What do I do now?

If you’ve identified your website is slower than 3 seconds, it’s time to make some changes. So how can your website catch up? If you want the Usain Bolt (only the greatest sprinter of all time) of websites, you’re going to have to invest in search engine optimization (SEO). You may have bulky images, page redirects, and uncompressed files contributing to your website’s slower load time.

The tools we mentioned above will give recommendations specific to your site for improving load speed, but unless you’re a web developer, the suggestions might sound confusing. We recommend hiring experienced web developers who can make changes like compressing images, implementing lazy loading, and leveraging browser caching to make your site FAST!

Luckily for you, we have a team of web developers with experience in website load speed optimization. We just sped up a client’s website from 5.9 seconds to 1.1 seconds!

Reach out at kerigan.com or email [email protected] to learn more about our website services!