You have probably heard this before – speed is a crucial parameter for your website’s performance. Given the rapid technological advancements, there is no good excuse to have a website that still struggles with loading time. The real question that needs to be addressed in today is not whether your website is fast but whether you can take steps to make it any faster.
With growing ease of accessibility propelled by handheld mobile devices, internet users are seeking instant connections and becoming more intolerant of website with poor loading time. If speed hasn’t been on your priority list until now, now is a good time to make a start. Here’s why a speedier website is good for your business and how you can improve your site’s loading time.
Why Speed Matters?
Loading speed affects the following aspects of your site’s internet marketing success:
Search Engine Ranking: In a recent announcement, Google has declared that a site’s loading time will impact search engine rankings. While loading time may not be as impactful as use of keywords in determining search engine rankings, it will definitely play a role in future SEO.
Higher Bounce Rates: Slow loading time automatically translates into higher bounce rates. Research indicates that nearly 53% visitors are likely to abandon a mobile site that takes longer than three seconds to load. The statistics clearly point in one direction – the average internet user is low on time and patience.
Lower Conversion Rates: The longer your site takes to load, the more frustrated your visitors will be. An irate visitor is a lot less likely to do business with your site. This directly translates into lower conversion rates, which means fewer sales. According to Kissmetrics, even a second’s delay in loading time can cause upto 7% reduction in conversions. To put things in perspective, that means a loss of whopping $2.5 million in revenue annually for a site with daily earning worth $100,000.
All of the above factors can result in loss of potential sales and seriously compromise your business’ financial robustness.
How to Improve Page Loading Time?
Before understanding how to improve page loading time, it is important to understand what qualifies as good loading time. So far, a loading time of 1-3 seconds is considered pretty healthy. If you view things futuristically, you should aim for a loading time of less than one second to keep your site viable in the long run. The process to achieving this end begins during the website development phase and depends on the following factors:
- A premium web host or a dedicated server (if your budget permits it)
- Deactivating unnecessary plugins
- Using light and clean web themes
- Relying on a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Keeping programming codes minimalistic and clean
- Minimizing redirects
- Optimizing images on the website
- Optimizing the site regularly
Useful Tools to Check Page Loading Scores
- PageSpeed Insights by Google
- GTmetrix
Hire Site Speed Optimization Service
In this article, we discussed why site speed matters, ways to improve website loading time and useful tools to check your website’s performance. If you don’t have time or not a technical person to implement site speed optimizations, then you should consider hiring an expert to improve your website’s loading time. You can find freelancer or agencies out there to help you with website speed optimization.
Suggested Website Speed Optimization Service for WordPress Sites
