Is Your Sluggish Website Killing Your Sales?

In today’s fast-paced world, people expect instant gratification. They want it and they want it now. Your website is no exception. If website visitors are forced to wait for your website to load, they’ll bounce and go to one of your competitors.

In this blog, we'll dive into the impact of a slow site on your results, how to test your site's speed, the root causes of sluggishness, and actionable steps you can take to improve your website's speed.

How Does Website Speed Impact Your Visibility and Visitor Engagement?

• Stress- Ericsson correlated slow mobile loading times with levels of stress similar to watching a horror movie or solving a difficult math problem. Your website visitors don’t want that kind of stress, nor will they tolerate it.

• Lost traffic- The BBC conducted a study on their website and found that, for every additional second of load time, 10% of traffic was lost.

• Lost conversions- When traffic is down, so are the desired actions you want visitors to take. Pinterest improved their perceived load times by 40% and saw a corresponding traffic and signup rate increase of 15%.

How to Test Your Website's Speed

There are a few trusted benchmarks out there worth taking a look at, but take these reports and results with a grain of salt. Many of the available tools are dependent on things outside of an agency or business owner’s control, such as a website viewer’s geographic location, the browser from which you're running these tests and the type of device from which you're running the test (mobile phone, tablet, desktop/laptop computer, etc.).

With that warning in mind, check out the following tools to analyze your website:

• GTmetrixis one of the better-known tools out there and is fairly independent of Google’s ranking factors.
• Pingdom is somewhat similar to GTmetrix, has been around for quite some time, and may serve as an additional data point.
• PageSpeed Insights is a Google-built tool. Get your PageSpeed score and use PageSpeed suggestions to make your web site faster through their online tool.
• Google’s “Mobile-Friendly” Tool is not strictly relegated to site speed and will give you more insight into how well your website is set up for Mobile Devices.

4 Quick Tips to Make Your Website Faster

So, you've got a slow webpage. Don't fret - here are some strategies to help you fix yourwebsite’s sluggishness. First, you need to understand the root cause(s) of the speed issue. Many factors play into making a website fast or slow — imagery, video, how the code of your website is loaded and utilized throughout your site, and the website server itself.

• Compress and optimize your images- If you’re on Wordpress and want to save time, we recommend the Smush plugin. For those on a Shopify e-commerce site, there’s Crush pics app. For those who wish to avoid plugins, check out tools like Compress JPEG.
• Use browser caching- This method works by saving previously loaded resources so reload is required for return visits. If you’re on a Wordpress site, you can try W3 Total Cache plugin.
• Minify your code- Minifying code entails cleaning it up. It's taking out spaces and unneeded characters from your code so your site loads faster. If you’re on a Wordpress site, you can install the Minify html plugin directly on your website.
• Embed videos correctly on your website- Videos can be fantastic for website engagement and performance and when added correctly, do not slow down page load speeds. What matters is how you choose to embed them. Self-hosting gives you more freedom and no ads but it will take longer to load than external videos. We recommend external video players like YouTube. To minimize slow-down, work with an experienced developer to limit the number of HTTP requests the browser has to make to load your website.

The Bottom Line About Slugs

Time is money and a slow website will cost you big time. Your website must load fast, feel snappy and responsive, and provide visitors with the information they need in an instant. This gives you the best chance at visibility, engagement, and converting visitors into customers. Fall behind on speed and you’ll fall behind on business.

A word of caution: Speed matters, but be careful not to overcorrect and have a speedy website that’s so bare that it fails to engage visitors.

While a sleek and efficient website design leads to faster loading times, this does not mean that your website cannot have all the modern bells and whistles. It simply means that your site should be developed with performance in mind by experienced web design and development professionals who understand how to optimize speed and efficiency.