Importance of Page Speed of Websites

You know that feeling when you are waiting for a website to load and it takes a really long time. Have you given up waiting and bounced back to Google to continue your search? Have you ever considered that your business website might be offering this exact same experience to your visitors? The last thing you want is to lose potential customers because your website is too slow to load. Your goal should be to offer a seamless user experience that leaves your customer feeling satisfied and happy.

This article aims to explain why site speed is becoming increasingly more important and why your business should pay attention to site speed in 2016.

Firstly, why is website speed important?

The Mighty Google

All the way back in 2010, Google announced that site speed would play a role in how well websites ranked in search results. As the years have passed, and with the growth of mobile, site speed is becoming a more and more significant factor in search rankings, and we predict this year will be huge for site speed. Think about how users interact on their phones whilst searching for content. Your brand has minimal time to make an impression and you do not want this precious little time to be wasted waiting for your pages to load. You can test how Google views your site speed in Google Analytics or by using this handy developer tool, PageSpeed Insights. It goes without saying that keeping Google happy with your website is of the utmost importance if you want to be found in search results.

Conversion Rates

It has been proven that your page speed can significantly impact your conversion rate. Take Amazon for example. When Amazon decreased their page speed by 1 second, they saw a 2 percent increase in conversions. Now when your company has previous reported selling 426 items per second in the past, 2 percent is quite a significant increase in sales. It seems obvious as to why a faster load time would improve conversion rate. Your customer will have a better user experience and therefore hold you in higher regard as a company and trust your brand. If you want to drive more sales, focus on improving your page speed.

What is considered to be a good page speed?

Currently a page speed between 3 to 7 seconds is average but ideally your page speed will be under 3 seconds. A good place to start is in Google Analytics where you can decipher which pages are causing the longer load times. Once you have identified the main problem pages, you can pop them into the PageSpeed Insights and diagnose the problem further. Typically, slow load times are cause by:

• Blocked resources
• Under-optimized images
• The website isn't leveraging browser caching

How can we dial in a process that solves page speed?

Many website owners are too focused on the design of the website and the copy, to worry about page speed. You need to include page speed in your design and launch strategy for any new websites and also in your regular tasks. For example, each time your upload an new image, you need to ensure that image is sized correctly for the web. The last thing you want is a blog full with massive images that pull down the average pagespeed for your website.

Do you know what your average page speed is? Tell us your experience over on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Prototype is a Dubai and Miami-based digital agency that provides web design in Dubai. Call us today for a free consultation.