The Importance Of Site Speed

| Web design

The Importance Of Site Speed

 

The importance of site speed is clear for the user experience and should be an obvious priority for any website owner.

As nobody wants to wait ages for a website to load, loading speed issues can result in huge customer losses.

Website speed isn’t only important for the users of your website but also for ranking highly within Google.

1) Living up to customer expectations

  • 40% of people will abandon a webpage if it takes more than three seconds to load.
  • 47% of people expect a webpage to load within two seconds or less.
  • 52% of people claim that quick webpage loads are important for their loyalty to a website.
  • 24% of people will back up immediately and go to another website if your websites load speed is slow.
  • 88% of people who are dissatisfied with their website visit will go somewhere else next time.
  • A one second delay can cost you 7% in sales.

2) Site speed for SEO

As I said above, site speed doesn’t just have a negative effect on the user experience but will also result in penalisation by Google meaning lower rankings.

Site speed has been a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm since 2010, with Google stating:

“At Google, we’re striving to make the whole web fast. As part of that effort, we’re launching a new web-based tool in Google Labs, Page Speed Online, which analyzes the performance of web pages and gives specific suggestions for making them faster. Page Speed Online is available from any browser, at any time. This allows website owners to get immediate access to Page Speed performance suggestions so they can make their pages faster.”

3) What causes webpages to load slowly?

There are a number of reasons why your webpage may be loading slowly. Here are the most common reasons why your website is slow:

  • Cheap hosting – this may save money at the start but if it isn’t reliable it can hurt your business in the long run.
  • Unoptimised images – all images need to be compressed
  • Widgets/Plugins – for example social media buttons. Something you think is simple can add a few seconds to your page loading time.
  • Incompatible with browsers – for example, flash can seriously slow down a webpage as it isn’t compatible with most mobile devices. You need to ensure your website loads fast on all devices and browsers.
  • Bulky code – coding needs to be condensed.
  • External media – videos, audio introductions, slide shows, etc can slow down a sites loading speed. Always try to host your content on your own server to boost speed.

Website speed still remains a big deal. It is one of Google’s more major ranking factors to determine your websites ranking but it is also vital to keep your customers satisfied. The faster a page loads, the better it will be for your business. 

Luke Stanley