How Your Site Speed Can Make or Break Your Website

No one wants the sites they want to visit to load slowly. In fact, your website speed impacts your website in many different ways. Let’s discuss how your site speed can make or break your website.

Search Engine Preferences

When someone clicks the link, waits a few moments, and then leaves, this action is read by search engines as a “bounce” and shows they weren’t satisfied. If your load time goes from one second to three seconds, the bounce rate is a third higher. If the site takes more than ten seconds to load, 40% of users will abandon the page.

This results in search engines downgrading the ranking of your content in relation to that query. A perfect SEO match is then undermined by a site that is slow to load.

Yes, a slow loading site will drastically negate your search engine optimisation.

The issue is so important to users that search engines now use page speed as a ranking factor. Google announced that speed is a ranking factor in the “mobile-first” index, due to the importance of page loading speed to mobile users.

Being Found

If your site takes too long for individual sites to load, your newest content simply may not be found because search engine “crawlers” run out of time before they get to the newest pages. Now your newest and best search engine optimised content doesn’t get indexed by search engines unless you manually submit it.

If you don’t realise this is an issue, your potential audience will still find your oldest pages but won’t find the content pieces or latest postings unless they stumble upon it.

The User Experience

Slow websites are horrible for users who expect instant gratification. And no, this isn’t an exaggeration. Every second your website takes to load costs you five to ten percent of your potential visitors.

If your website appears but has graphics, images, and videos still loading, a site puts up a title but little else within five seconds. This rates poorly with visitors. For example, on mobile, consumers decide whether they like it in three seconds.

If they choose to stay, they’ll retain these negative impressions of your site and are less likely to buy or inquire about your products or services.

However, most of these visitors won’t stay, and they’re going to avoid your website in the future. Even those looking for specific information or considering buying a product are less likely to convert since a website that is slow to load up front causes customers to worry if the checkout process will be as laborious.

If a customer's session times out when they’re trying to do something critical like paying a bill, buying an item, or engaging with a friend, you’re hurting your reputation and making them more likely to go somewhere else.

A slow loading website will be downgraded by search engines, hated by users, and may not even be found in general search results. Even a few seconds slower loading will hurt your site’s SEO.

If you are concerned about your page loading time, your site’s rankings, or user experience on your site, speak to the experts at Matters Solutions to find out more about the ways we can help you streamline your site and improve your SEO.