How Does Site Page Speed Affect Conversion Rate?
If you are a busy person then you want information at the click of your finger.
If you are a student then you would want a page to load quickly so you could get to the answer you are looking for.
If you are about to buy a product then you would want information such as product description and customer reviews to be accessible at top speed.
That is why the rate in which the page speed is important to the user.
Does Page Speed Affect Conversion Rate?
Pages that have quick speed helps the user to access the page quickly and effectively.
Pages with a load time that is long and sluggish frustrates users and causes them to exit from the page due to the waiting.
A page with a long loading time affects conversions negatively.
What is Site Speed?
Site speed is the average of several sample pages on a website.
It gives you a report on how swiftly the site’s users are able to see and interact with content.
Through the information of the report you can see in which areas you need to improve and track your progress as you make improvements in the site.
What Affects Site Speed?
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A bad host or server
There are three possible types of hosting, shared hosting, virtual Private Servers (VPS) hosting, dedicated server.
Choose wisely on which type of host for your site that is fast, secure and has an affordable cost to ensure better optimization.
Do your research on what host to pick, if you pick a bad one then your site or business will suffer along with potential users of your site.
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JavaScript and CSS use
If you use JavaScript and CSS to add to your site’s functionality and overall style then you are potentially adding to the factors that make your site slow.
If you want to still use JavaScript or CSS and want to keep the style and functionally used, then it is in your best interest to move the tracking code and scripting to a below-the-fold location.
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Use of Widgets and Plug-ins
If you enjoy putting plug-ins and widgets in your site that was made from WordPress unfortunately plug-ins and widgets, no matter how colorful and fun the look, add to your site’s slow speed.
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Bad Codes
Websites that have bad codes can load slowly. If you want to have a faster site speed, take a look at your site’s code and remove unneeded elements from your code such as extra spaces, line breaks, and other formatting data that are not essential for your site.
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Image amount and sizes
GIF, PNG, and JPEG are the most popular image formats on the internet. It is important to optimize images for web experience.
You can do this by reducing an image’s file size and retaining their high quality at the same time.
A browser cannot download fast if an image has a high amount of bytes and can take a long time to render the image on the screen.
How Does Page Speed Affect UX?
If you are a long time internet user then you would like your UX (user experience) to be quick and prompt.
To have a better UX on a page, you would want information to come to you fast.
At times a slow page speed can deter new users on your page and they would not want to come back anymore.
The page speed on your site can impact the following:
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- User time on your site
- Have a positive/negative impact on your business
- Deter new users from returning
- Low search engine rank
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How Important is Site Speed?
Google has stated that the site speed as a ranking factor in their search rankings. Imagine how you search for things on the internet.
Are you quick to close a tab and go to the next site if a site has a long loading time?
If you’re searching for good restaurants or fast food nearby or emergency services, will you return to a site that takes forever to appear the information you want on the screen?
As you go about a busy day and search on your phone, do you have the patience to wait long load times as you try to check your social media, compare product reviews, or search for the location of a gas station?
The less waiting time you receive, the more you are impatient for a site to load quickly.
Does Page Loading Time Really Affect Bounce Rate?
Even though your site has really good content, they might get turned off.
It takes too long to navigate the site. When users have to wait for content, they focus their attention to their waiting time and not instead to the content on the site, even if it is interesting.
In the end, they feel that even if they want to stay long and explore your site more, they can’t.
New users might be surprised at the duration of the waiting time, as a result, they feel that the site is not new user friendly and is not easily controllable.
If you have a fast page site or little to no loading time then users can freely enjoy your site without the added frustration of a long loading time for content.
What Can You Do to Have Faster Site Speed?
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Minimize and condense files
Minimizing a file involves removing unneeded formatting, whitespace, and code that can add to your site’s lag time.
Every piece of code that is unneeded adds to the size of your site. It is vital that you eliminate extra spaces, line breaks, and indentation that makes you code clunky. This will make sure that your site works without the unnecessary add-ons.
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Reduce Server Response Time
The amount of time the DNS of your site takes up is an important factor in how fast your site can load.
If you do not know what DNS means it stands for domain name system, what it does is translate domain names to IP addresses so browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox can load Internet resources.
Your Site Speed is Vital
Optimizing your site’s speed can make a big difference in terms of user experience. With more people relying online for just about anything, you need your website to be a vital resource on what they’re looking for. Contact us today and we’ll help you with your site speed problem!
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Big Easy SEO is a web design, SEO, and digital marketing agency that strives to help small to medium sized businesses boost their brand in the online market and search engines.
Our goal is to provide metrics, results and services tailor made to your business through a variety of strategies including search engine optimization (SEO), web design, and ads