The point being is that you need to have a fast website, or your users will not wait. Users are more accustomed to fast service more than ever. With your Uber Eats and Amazon, everything is at the tip of your fingers and your website needs to be as well.
Your website rankings could also go down when you have a slow website. That is because search engines consider the content in websites with higher bounce rates to be irrelevant or useless. So, it is not just humans who will ditch your website but search engines will start to treat your website as useless as well.
And when it comes to ecommerce websites, you are more likely to lose their customers if the checkout pages tend to load slow er than usual. Man oh man, imagine you are trying to give your money to someone and they won’t take it. Make sure the checkout process is seamless!
What is Website Page Speed?
Page speed is the amount of time a specific webpage takes to display its content. In simple terms, it is the time the browser takes to receive information from the server. A few factors and elements that affect the page speed include images and videos on the page, HTML code, JavaScript files, and CSS files. Everything on your website, from the elements on it to hosting, could affect its speed.
Page Speed vs. Site Speed
Site speed and page speed appear to be similar, but they are not the same. Site speed is the overall speed of different pages on a website, while page speed is the time a single web page takes to load. Page speed is the time a website visitor has to wait to view the content on that page.
Why are Website Speeds Important?
No one likes slow or delayed services. Likewise, when your visitors land on your website, they may not want to wait too long for the webpage to load. If your website takes longer than usual to display content, they will navigate away from your website. This will result in your search engine rankings going down, which will, in turn, lower your traffic. Search engines will consider your site to have content irrelevant to your visitors as the user had a negative experience and navigated away from your website.
If your website loads quickly, your visitors are more likely to stay on your website and it will also receive better traffic. Your conversion rates and website rankings will also improve. On the other hand, if your website does not render fast and loads slowly, you will lose your visitors and your overall website rankings.
How Fast Should a Website Load?
Your website should load as fast as possible. The ideal website load time is around three seconds or less. Most visitors abandon websites that take too long to load. So, it is important to make sure it loads in around two to three seconds as most visitors expect that these days.
Average Page Load Times – Desktop and Mobile
According to a research conducted by Backlinko, the average time taken by a webpage to load on a desktop is about 10.3 seconds and on mobile phones is about 27.3 seconds. This research shows that webpages load quicker on desktops than on mobile devices.
As most users use mobile phones to browse the web these days, it is important to optimize page speeds on mobile phones, as well. Comparatively, more people use their smartphones to browse the web, though the user experience seems to be better on desktops. Around 50% of users say that the time the webpage takes to load is something they hate.
What do Your Visitors Expect?
More than 80% of internet users think that they wait too long for webpages to load. Around 80% of people who use their mobile phones to browse want webpages to load faster than on desktops. Many want pages to load immediately after they click on the URL. Generally, they want the websites to load in less than four seconds. Some say that they will leave the site if it takes too long to load.
Many mobile users claim that the websites load too slow. Some say that the pages displayed error messages and did not work as expected. Likewise, website formatting is also a problem to some as they say they couldn’t read the text.
How does Website Speed Impact the Business?
Your website speed can directly and indirectly affect your website’s rankings and conversion rates, as well. When your website loads slowly, your potential customers are going to navigate away from your website, resulting in your website losing a sale. When many customers do so, you are going to incur losses to your business. Similarly, it could impact your rankings, which in turn will result in fewer people visiting your website.
Impact on sales
Internet users hate slow websites. As mentioned above, slow websites will increase the bounce rate. Visitors are more likely to abandon your website, which will cause your page views and conversions to fall drastically.
Impact on SEO
You will lose your website rankings if your website is slow. If you would like to rank better on Google, it is important to make sure your website does not render slowly. Users tend to spend more time on websites that load fast. Slow websites send a wrong signal to the search engines and this will affect your website rankings.
Impact on Customer Satisfaction
Website visitors expect websites to load quickly as the thing they hate is the time the site takes to load. When your website takes too long to render, your website visitor is going to end up being disappointed with your website and your business as a whole. As a result of that, they may not visit your website again and would go for a faster website and make their purchase there.
How to Speed Up Your Website?
Here are a few simple ways to speed up your website.
Check current page speed
In order to speed up your website, you will have to know what the current speed is. If not, you may not be able to identify the areas you will need to focus on. You can use tools like GTMetrix to check what the current speed is. Once you get to know how it is currently performing you can make changes to your website to improve its performance.
Check your website for malware and other issues
Your website could be slow because it is infected. You can run a quick check to know if it is infected with a virus or malware. You can prevent your site from being infected or hacked by using an SSL certificate and by using anti-malware software. An SSL certificate will secure your website and ensure that your users’ sensitive information like credit card details will be safe online.
Hosting provider
Many overlook this factor when it comes to page speed, but yes, your hosting provider could be a reason for slow speeds. Shared server space and limited bandwidth could result in slow speeds. It is important to go for a hosting service that is optimized for speed. You can prevent your website from slowing down by going for a hosting provider that offers good performance and speed. Your hosting package could affect your website’s overall performance and speed. Going for a hosting plan that provide solid-state drive (SSD) will be of great help when it comes to speed unlike hard disk drive that are slower when compared to SSD. Similarly, hosting providers that offer more bandwidth and RAM are recommended as more bandwidth and RAM will add more speed to your website.
Wrapping Up
We hope that these tips above help you increase your website load time. After all of these warnings about the pitfalls of a slow website, you might have understood the importance of load times for a website’s success (hopefully not “might”,” we hope you do!). Your search engine rankings will improve if you make improvements to your load times. And not just that, but your conversion rates will go up and bounce rates will reduce.
With a faster load time, users are happier. With the lower bounce rate, search engines are boosting your rankings. And now you are selling more stuff, and everyone is happier. Now, it is time for you to take the necessary actions to speed up your website and reap the benefits.
Remember to check your website for malware and other issues as this could be affecting your page load speed. Make sure to also take a look at your hosting provider as they may not be providing what you need as well. Best of luck!