Even for the most patient of people, waiting can be a real test of character. Whether it’s in a pizzeria, concert or store, speed is easily glorified among those who are capable of giving it.
When it comes to a website’s speed, it can either make or break a business. It seems the faster technology develops, the more impatient users grow. Since Google declared speed as an organic search-ranking algorithm five years ago, everyone agrees that success goes beyond web design and SEO services.
But just how important page speed really is and why is it an impetus to a flourishing business? Here are a few factors to consider.
User Engagement
Studies have shown that users will only wait as short as two seconds for an entire page to load. For mobile users, they can only wait up to five seconds. Otherwise, they will move on to the next. This makes it crucial for a website’s speed to be fast enough before users hit the “X” button.
In general, slow-loading pages mean lower user engagement. From here a chain reaction of even more unfortunate events follow: Decrease in web traffic, rankings and ultimately, profits.
Crawlers
In the realm of SEO, crawlers are not to be taken lightly, as these bots can heavily influence one’s page ranking and in the long run, a business’ very own power to exist.
Crawlers can be as easily displeased as actual website visitors. Since Google became particular with page speed as part of a thriving website, the chances of crawlers skipping a page when it’s slow to load is high.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is everything to businesses. For a company that operates online to grow, an increase is essential.
Every second lessened in loading time means a greater increase in customer confidence and trust. Once they have seen how efficient a webpage is in terms of speed, these customers will be more than happy to return each time.
There are plenty of ways to increase page speed. For starters, optimizing and compressing images can make all the difference. Wrangling scripts and cleaning up caches are also two very efficient ways to boost a website.
From here, better rankings could be achieved and more users could be converted.
