Here at Direct Allied Agency, and many other web design firms, we’re seeing an influx of customers asking to rebuild their site to make it load faster. There are a lot of reasons why website speed is essential, but most importantly is because a site’s performance is vital in leaving a good first impression online. Most of the time, business owners use the site to promote a product or a service, and people expect speed.
Site speed affects your conversion rates, bounce rate, SEO rankings, and user experience. Slow site speed can result in the poor overall performance of your website.
If all this website jargon is a bit over your head, don’t worry, in this post we will walk you through why a slow website is a no-no.
Before we jump into things, let’s be clear on what website speed is. Also known as website performance, this refers to how fast websites and mobile sites respond to web requests. This is how long it takes for web pages and all their images and elements to become visible. Think of load speed as the interaction time between the user and the site’s content.
5 Reasons Why Website Speed Matters
Here are the main things to evaluate if you’re experiencing a sluggish website.
It is a search ranking signal
Google considers fast load speed as an essential ranking factor, especially for users searching on hand-held devices. This means that a website’s search rankings on computer and mobile devices are directly affected by loading performance. This is one of those SEO best practices which determine your place in the search engine ranking pages (SERPs) and increase organic traffic.
It’s said that Google operates by speed obsession for every product presented on the web. A faster website means reliability and professionalism. However, Google recommends not only focusing on page speed and load times but also on producing quality and relevant content.
PRO TIP: A content delivery network (CDN) is a web server network that helps site owners have faster sites. Look into a CDN and integrate it into your website DNS because this tool creates improved performance and can optimize images and the way they are served to users. You can also learn about core web vitals and cumulative layout shift (CLS) and how they affect load speeds.
Page speed determines the success of the user experience
Did you know that 40% of the users tend to leave a page with more than 3 seconds of loading time? 53% of mobile users abandon sites when they load slowly. This 2022, the site should ideally load as fast as 1-2 seconds.
Websites with slow loading speed may result in a bad user experience. You do not want your first time visitors to switch to other eCommerce sites due to slow websites.
Page load time has an effect on the conversion rate
There is much data out there that proves just how a fast-loading website has an increased conversion percentage. Conversion rate is the number of users who take the desired action that you want on your pages.
For instance, you put up an e-commerce site and post your products on your site—the percentage of visitors who buy your offerings before leaving. Users will opt to close the application or website when they have slow pages.
In the Asia Pacific region, there is a 20% drop in conversion for every one-second page delay. People are not willing to wait for a website to load, and in the United States that number is even greater!
Remember that page load speed is just one critical factor affecting conversion.
The slower your website loads the more maintenance you need
Optimizing your website will require some cost from your end, but it will be worth it. It would help if you chose a good web host to do the web hosting. There are two types of hosting that offer more resources.
Dedicated Server Hosting has a single server that serves as the host for one website. Although more expensive, it aids in reducing or eliminating the possibility of site speed loss owing to traffic spikes on other sites. While cloud hosting hosts websites in multiple servers known as the “cloud,” which provides additional resources and flexibility.
We have a very helpful article about the fastest WordPress hosting plans for your website here.
Your sales might suffer
Nowadays, people crave convenience. A good website experience, combined with professional digital marketing boosts your efforts to attract potential buyers to try a product or service. At the start of the year, 69% of Americans have purchased from a business online, and the majority of these sales came from transactions using a mobile device.
The hard truth is, if mobile site speed is poor, people will not wait. The same rule applies to a web page. A fast website can have a huge impact on retaining more users, leading to increased revenue. But, slow sites can drive away prospects to avail of your product or service offerings.
How to Measure Site Speed
Page speed plays a vital role in your website’s success and you should be aware of the areas that your website needs to improve in. You should take some time to learn how to track this data and make the necessary adjustments. Here are the aspects of latency that can help you measure your website’s performance to load quickly:
- Page load time
- Page size
- Time To First Byte (TTFB)
- Number of round trips
- Round Trip Time (RTT)
- Page elements
- First input delay (FID)
- Field and lab data
Everybody wants a fast site
Each user wants a website that consistently loads fast. There are many ways to attain this, such as optimizing images. However, it is better to ask for help from an expert.
Direct Allied is an affordable Tulsa website design and development company specializing in lightning fast WordPress websites. You can focus more on the income-generating tasks for your business while we manage your sites. In terms of web solutions, we can be your helping hand.
