SITE SPEED:
When a customer sits down to eat at a restaurant, slow services from the waiter often results in poor yelp reviews and fewer future customers. Similarly, slow site speed can result in poor search engine rankings, lower overall site traffic, and negative user experiences.
Website speed, or website performance, refers to how quickly a browser is able to load fully functional webpages from a given site. Poorly performing sites that render slowly in a browser can drive users away. Conversely, sites that load quickly will typically receive more traffic and have better conversion rates.
Site speed, also known as page speed, refers to the time it takes for a web page to load and display its content on a user’s browser. It’s a critical factor in user experience and can impact various aspects of a website, including search engine rankings, user engagement, and conversion rates. Here are some key points about site speed:
- Page Load Time: This is the duration between a user clicking a link or entering a URL and the complete display of the web page content in their browser. Faster page load times lead to better user satisfaction.
- Time to First Byte (TTFB): TTFB measures how long it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of information from the web server. A lower TTFB indicates faster server response times.
- Optimization: To improve site speed, consider the following steps:
- Optimize Images: Compress images without compromising quality.
- Minimize HTTP Requests: Reduce the number of requests needed to load a page.
- Leverage Browser Caching: Cache static resources to avoid repeated downloads.
- Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): CDNs distribute content across multiple servers globally, reducing latency.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript: Remove unnecessary characters and whitespace.
- Choose a Fast Web Host: Hosting affects server response times.
WHY IS SITE SPEED IMPORTANT:
CONVERSION RATE:
Multiple studies have demonstrated that site speed affects conversion rate. Not only do more users stay on fast-loading sites, they also convert at higher rates compared to slower sites.
BOUNCE RATE:
The bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave a website after viewing only one page. Users are likely to close the window or click away if a page does not load within a few seconds.
SEO BEST PRACTICES:
Because Google tends to prioritise getting relevant information to users as quickly as possible, site performance is an important factor in Google search rankings. A site’s performance on mobile devices is especially important for SEO.
USER EXPERIENCE:
Long page load times, and poor response times to user actions, create a bad user experience. Waiting for content to load becomes frustrating for users and may provoke them into leaving the site or application altogether.
WRAPPING UP:
In the research, his team analysed 5million desktop and mobile pages and came to the following conclusions:”The average page loading speed for a web page is 10.3 seconds on desktop and 27.3 seconds on mobile. On average, pages take 87.84% longer to load on mobile devices than on desktop”
Remember that individual page speeds may vary within a website,so,its essential to test and optimise all pages for the best overall user experience.If you have a specific website you’d like to evaluate, feel free to share the URL, and I can provide more tailored advice! 😊
