Every business needs to have a website in today’s world. However, what most companies don’t keep in mind while creating a website is the speed of it. Most of us pay attention towards the pages, blogs, images, content, etc. that will go in the website. But we forget that the loading time of the website is equally important.
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The loading time of your website can have serious impact on SEO and your marketing efforts. Are you still in doubt about how your website speed can make or break your business? Well, I would suggest you to read on.
First impression is the last impression:
Seriously, this is the exact motto that you should memorize. When someone visits your website, your website becomes the face of your business. If your website is loading fast, people consider your website (and company) to be professional. Even though there is no data to back this logic up, it is people’s psychology. People tend to believe if a website is loading faster, the company is trustworthy.
On the other hand, a slow website is often thought to be unprofessional and even insecure. People think that if a website is taking too long to load, it must have items that can corrupt their devices. Believe me, 80% of your visitors will not return to your website if it is slow to load.
Speed is what is expected:
Imagine having a conversation with a friend about the last Marvel movie you saw. While you may be a big fan of MCU, you may suddenly not remember the name of Gamora’s sister. What will be the first thing to do? You will search the answer. And you will definitely want to see the answer as fast as possible.
Now imagine the same situation where someone is trying to find information from your website. The person will want to get the search results as fast as possible. Speed is what we all expect from the websites. Many websites take only fifteen seconds to load, which is much faster than what these used to take last year.
However, you will be surprised to know that most people are not ready to wait for even fifteen seconds. Most people will abandon our website if it takes longer than three seconds (yes, 3 seconds!!) to load.
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It is also seen that people who access any website from their mobile devices expect the sites to load even faster that what it takes to load in desktop. People may consider a website such as Facebook or Instagram or Google to load a slowly because these are established names. However, you don’t have the luxury as a small or medium business owner. People will not only expect your website to load fast, they will also expect it to function well while loading.
Improves your SEO ranking:
Search engines, especially Google, keeps updating their algorithms. Any marketer would agree with the fact that it becomes a pain in your neck to keep up with the changes. Can you believe that Google changes its algorithm more than the number of days in the year? It means, sometimes that company changes the algorithms more than once in a day.
It is impossible to keep up with the frequent changes. However, there are a few techniques that you can try out to improve your SEO ranking. One of these methods is to improve the speed of your website. According to one of Google’s team members, Google likes websites that load faster. Hence, since 2010, website speed matters when it comes to search engine optimization.
As per a Google team member, an ecommerce website should take only two seconds to load. But it will be considered excellent if an ecommerce website loads within half a second. More than 40% of users expect a website to load within two seconds.
Reduced conversion rate
I know it’s difficult to believe that the speed of your website can even reduce the rate of conversion. Well, I will explain how it is possible. As we mentioned earlier, your website has three seconds to get loaded. Now, assume that your website takes around five seconds. No doubt that the five seconds loading time is excellent and is better than many other websites. However, it is not enough.
According to some studies, 53% of people don’t wait if a website takes more than the desired time to load. So, if you have 100 visitors every day, you are losing 53 visitors. In a month, you will be losing 1590 visitors. If only 10% of this 1590 people becomes your customer, you are losing 159 customers. Let’s assume that your product or service is worth $50. So, the result will be $7950 every month!
Do I need to calculate the amount that you lose in a year? Isn’t the number surprising? And the entire amount that you lose is just because your website takes two seconds more than what is desired to load.
Bad user experience
What is the reason behind creating your website? The first reason is to give your customers what they want. But that is not enough. Your website should also be loading fast so that users get the right information and that too faster. As I mentioned before, users won’t stick to a website that takes long to load. If the visitors are frustrated, they will not only leave your website but they may also never come back. It takes us to our next point.
The long-term result of slow website:
If you don’t pay attention to your website speed, it will remain slow for longer period. And if that is the case with your website, I am sorry to inform you my friend, you have a serious problem. A slow website that remains slow for years or even months, will gradually go down in the search engine rank page.
Marketing is largely depended on the word-of-mouth. People often refer to a particular website that they feel to be good. Good website doesn’t mean that the website has all the necessary information but it also means that the information is quickly accessible.
If your website functions properly, people may sign up for your newsletters. Some of these people may end up purchasing your product or service as well. If your business website takes too long to load, users won’t subscribe to the newsletters. They won’t even visit your website even if they know that you have the necessary information. In simple words, the credibility of your website may seriously get damaged.
How can you optimize your website?
So, now you have a clear idea about how your website speed can make or break your business, you might be wondering how to optimize your website. The first thing that you must keep in mind is that images and videos take time to load, especially when the internet is slow.
Your graphics should ideally be in PNG form and the images should be in JPEG form. There are many other small details that you need to be careful about. Since it is not possible for you to pay attention to every minute detail, Nico Digital is here to help you out. We offer website development and website design services. We know how to design your website so that you don’t have to deal with a slow website, now or ever. Besides, we also make sure to update your website regularly so that nothing could corrupt your website and make it slow.
