Speed is king, and no where is that more true than for your website. As the saying goes though, you only get one chance to make a good first impression. So, what does that mean for your website? A recent survey showed that over 50% of users said that they expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. With the addition of graphic and video laden websites lately, the performance of many pages have gone substantially downhill. The most interesting fact is that many companies have no idea of what the impact of a slow website does for their search ranking online.
Here's a few of the issues a slow website can cause—
Lower traffic
No one likes to wait online for anything really, and if users are stuck waiting for your beautiful new homepage of yours to load, they will leave. Plain and simple. This is especially true for non-niche industries where competitors can easily be selected over one another. Worse yet, most users never return to a website that is slower than others in the same industry!
Poor search ranking
Users rely on Google to show them the most relevant websites when they enter a particular search. If, over time, Google's algorithms notice high abandonment, your website, no matter how strong in content will be served less and less as a result. Even with corrective actions, it can take months to gain back ground in search ranking.
Higher bounce
All websites have some form of bounce rate, defined as a visit with no interaction. However, websites that have poor load speeds experience this almost 2:1 lowering conversion rates and impacting sales, especially for eCommerce sites that rely solely on user interaction to complete the sales process.
So, what can you do to see where you're at right now? Using the Lighthouse tool from Google, you'll be able to get a numerical value for how your website is performing on desktop and mobile. Some of the fixes are easy, while others will require more skill to undertake. Rest assured though, that the effort in correcting these issues is well worth the time and money saved as a result.
Should you have questions about how to fix your site speed issues, take a look at this resource, or feel free to give us a call and we can help. To see your overall online presence, take a look at this.
