WHY WEBSITE SPEED IS IMPORTANT?. PAGE SPEED OPTIMIZATION

What is website speed?

In simple terms, your website speed is the average time taken to download your web pages and fully display their content. But in reality, it’s much more complex. For instance, each page of your website could have a different loading time depending on various types of elements such as JavaScript files or multimedia content like videos and images. The browser, device, and internet speed can all affect this, too.

Now, to your customer, none of these matters, except how fast your website could appear on their screen. So, every second matters. According to Think with Google, when your page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of bouncing increases by 32%. This explains why top brands focus so much on getting their sites performing at lightning speed. There’s much at stake when things slow down.

WHY WEBSITE SPEED IMPORTANT

In business, speed is imperative, whether it’s getting your product to the market or reaching your customer before your competitor does. This rule of speed applies to your website’s loading time, too.

Here are 3 reasons why you should care about page speed.

1. A slow website could drive away your customers.

Today, consumers are impatient. They are leading incredibly fast-paced lives and speed dominates their decision-making process. Research shows that 53% of users will abandon a mobile site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That’s the cost of a slow website. When your website’s user experience falls short, your customer will go in search of alternatives. This will send your bounce rate up and could ultimately sabotage your customer engagement, conversions, and the ability to monetize your website. And once you lose a customer to a competitor, there’s a good chance they might never return

2. Website speed Is Important Because It will affect your search rankings.

It’s no secret that Google’s complex algorithms use various criteria to rank search results. This helps deliver relevance and ease to its users. Now, desktop and mobile website speed is a critical ranking factor for Google to determine how far up the result pages your site should appear. So, neglecting site speed could hamper your website’s search ranking and leave you with countless missed opportunities.

3. A sluggish site will leave a bad impression.

When your site takes ages to download, it could look like an internet-age dinosaur to your customers. To them, it might signal an outdated website and a lack of focus on customer experience. This could leave a bad impression and damage your brand image and reputation.

So, the benefits of page speed optimization are evident and compelling. Ignoring them could cost you customers and leave you with severe long-term ramifications

What is your current website speed?

So, do you know the real speed of your website? Of course, visiting your site using different browsers and devices is the easiest way to get an idea. But it’s not enough. For instance, if you’re aiming to reach a global audience, then you have to understand your site speed in each geographic location. The bottom line is, you need proper data to analyze your site’s speed performance, benchmark it against your competitors, and set goals to improve it further.

Here are 3 tools to help you out.

1. Google’s PageSpeed Insights

This is a free tool by Google to analyze your page speed on both desktops and mobile devices. PageSpeed Insights uses lab and field data to assess your site and provides a performance score together with recommendations for improvement.

Client asked us to completely transform the User interface of the website.

2. GTMetrix 

GTMetrix is an excellent speed analytics tool that offers both free and premium features. It can test your website for different countries, browsers, network connections, and various other criteria. Apart from a summary of performance, you can also access features like scheduled tracking and alerts when your website slows down.

3. Pingdom

Pingdom is another popular tool to check your site speed with up-to-date reports. It’ll help you understand your site performance and quickly identify what needs attention. Several annual plans are available on its site with a 30-day free trial.

4 factors that contribute to slow load time

Now, if you find that your website has gotten sluggish, you first need to understand why before determining remedial action. Typically, there are 4 major factors that could slow down your site.

1. Sloppy HTML coding

Sloppy coding could add unnecessary bulk to your web pages and sabotage their performance. For instance, too much formatting that doesn’t really add value could contribute towards draining the site speed. So, it’s essential to clean up the coding with a good developer and keep things concise.

2. Heavy unoptimized images

We all love high-resolution visuals. But your website speed could take a hit when you start using lots of bulky images. Some file formats like PNG and GIF are also heavier than others.

3. Server location

Your servers’ proximity to the website users plays an important role in your site’s performance. When the server is located far from the audience who’s accessing the website, communication back and forth will take a longer time. This could make your website slow to load.

4. Excessive redirects

Having too many redirects will add extra work for the server as it goes searching for those web pages before they could download. Redirected landing pages, in particular, could have a significant impact on site speed.

Does your website need help in the page speed department?

Is your website running slow? Has the site bounce rate gone up? Are you getting worried that your website performance is hampering sales? Then you need help with speed optimization.

If you don’t get speed issues fixed as they arise, the cost to your business could be exponential. A slow-performing website will drive away customers, drive down conversions, and leave a hole in your top and bottom line. Plus, your search rankings will plunge, and your brand reputation could take a hit. And the missed opportunities? You’ll never be able to properly weigh them up. This is why you need the help of a professional speed optimization service to troubleshoot your site and speed things up with regular maintenance.

At Online Web Design, our team of experts can help you do just that. We’ll diagnose your website speed issues and get it running at top speed in no time. So, get in touch for a free consultation.