Whether you’re running an ecommerce website, a blog or just trying to make connections with your audience, the loading time of your website is one of the most important things you can do to improve conversions. In fact, a decrease in page speed by three seconds can negatively impact your user experience and even your overall revenue.
Google and other search engines consider page speed as an important factor in site rankings. It’s a key reason why many sites are now investing heavily in speed optimization.
How Page Speed Affects User Experience
Page speed isn’t a one-size-fits-all measurement, and it can vary significantly from site to site. It is influenced by a number of factors, from the size of the files that you’re displaying on your site to how much data is required to deliver it to the user.
Larger files, such as JavaScript files, can have a negative effect on page speed. These files can be very complex and add significant ‘weight’ to a page, which means it takes longer for the browser to download the content.
Scaling your resources to reduce load time by reducing the amount of files that need to be downloaded for each request helps your page to load faster. This can be done through utilizing Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), consolidating script files, CSS files and image sprites, and caching frequently needed resources on the browser.
Users expect a web page to load quickly, and they will leave a site if it takes longer than they want. This is why a slow loading page can lead to a high bounce rate, low average time on page and lower conversion rates.
Faster pages also often have a better user experience, with the ability to view all of the information on the page, including images and text, within a short period of time. This allows for more interactive experiences with your content, and can boost engagement and conversions.
How to Measure Page Speed?
Page speed can be measured by using tools like GTmetrix, Pingdom tools, Google Analytics, New Relic and others that provide a simple page load time for a small sample of visitors. However, these metrics do not directly measure the effect that page speed has on your marketing metrics such as page views per session and bounce rate.
Your user location and connection type can also impact your page speed. For example, if your visitors are in rural areas, they may be unable to connect to your server quickly because of their local Internet infrastructure and browser choices. To combat this, you can improve your page speed by scaling content based on the user’s location and their connection type.
If your website is hosted in a data center that has multiple locations, you can improve your page speed by delivering your content from the closest data center to your users. This can make a big difference for users with slower connections.
I recommend Cloudways for our readers. I have been using Cloudways since 2016 and I’m really happy with their service. You can check our Cloudways test site and read the review here.
Page speed is a measurable factor in site ranking, and it has an incredible impact on conversions and visitor satisfaction. If your website isn’t meeting these standards, it could be time to reconsider your strategy.
