This is the first in a series of three blogs I am dedicating to the speed of your website. Website speed is incredibly important to your online marketing efforts, which is why I will be examining:
- How Important Speed Is To Google.
- Reasons Why Your Website Is Loading Slowly.
- Tools Used to Test and Improve Site Speed.
Waiting can eventually get the best of everyone, even patient people who are thought to be impervious to the pain of waiting in line. Waiting in line at the bank can make you bored enough to keel over. Waiting in line at the airport can enrage you. Waiting in line at the pizza shop will make only make you hungrier. What are similar about waiting in line at all three of these places? They all set off negative emotions.
What does this have to do with internet marketing? Because waiting for a website to load will only make you throw the computer out the window, or at the very least, go to another website. Either way, the owner of that slowly-loading website should not be happy.
According to the almighty internet God Google (I know you were all thinking Lance Bachmann) speed is important. Speed is good. Speed is the difference from someone converting to a purchase on your website or someone turning to a competitor’s website.
So why does Google care about page speed? Even though page speed is one of over 200 signals used to determine rank, a faster loading website can improve rankings and help businesses gain more organic website traffic. Faster page loading speeds can have positive ranking effects on desktop and mobile sites.
When It Comes To User Experience, Faster Is Better
Online users, especially consumers, love fast-loading websites. According to a case study from Radware (http://blog.radware.com/applicationdelivery/applicationaccelerationoptimization/2013/05/case-study-page-load-time-conversions/), 50% of online consumers in the United States claimed they would not complete a purchase if the website ran too slow. New research has also shown that 47% of web users expect that a website should load completely in under two seconds.
Happiness turns to anger, one second at a time, which is why it is important to make sure your website is loading fast and furiously. Before another consumer jumps ship to another website, be sure to read my upcoming blog in my “Speed” series, examining what causes a website to load slowly.
