There are many misconceptions that can make you think speed is not important for a website’s success. You could say 5 seconds of the loading time isn’t that long. Or that website speed is only one of the hundreds of factors in Google’s search ranking algorithm and that it’s not cost-effective to improve it.
Also read: Check Your Website Page Load Speed to Rank High
As for mobile searches, you could claim Google search algorithm only penalizes extremely slow websites. Another argument is that mobile users have lower expectations for web page load times. But you would be wrong. It is easy to assume low speed won’t hurt a website’s performance. In fact, many website owners think so. Statistics gathered by the Hosting Tribunal state that average load times are 9.3 seconds for desktop websites and 22 seconds for mobile ones.
Let’s be honest here; would you wait 22 seconds for a web page to load? Probably not. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even wait 4 seconds. This might seem improbable, but statistics show that web pages that take over 3 seconds to load lose 53% of visitors. Losing this amount of visitors is too much. And the number of people who leave only increases as load times become longer. Search engines take this into account. Visitor bounce rates show a lack of relevant content.
So if hundreds (or thousands) of people leave when a web page doesn’t load in 3 seconds, that page will score lower in future searches. And we have barely mentioned the visitors themselves. Not only do most leave if a website is slow, but the majority will avoid it in the future. Some will even spread the news and make even more people stay away. Now, all of this is not meant to scare you.
Even though high load times can hurt a website, web page do not have to be slow. In fact, there are countless tools for improving website speed and a lot of them are free to use so anyone can try them. And if you improve your website’s speed you will attract positive attention.
Research has shown that high speeds keep visitors loyal to your website and, if you are running an online store, your brand. All this illustrates how speed can make or break a website, regardless of content. If you are interested in some success stories or seeing what you can expect if you speed up your website, you can read this insightful info-graphic.
| About the Guest Author:
Josh Wardini is a Community Manager at Webmastersjury
He is:- Location Incapable Internet Enthusiast | Re-Designer of the World Around | Bodybuilder trapped in a Computer Geeks Body.