Page speed
53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a page speed is longer than 3 seconds. A 2-second delay in load time results in abandonment rates of up to 87%. Google aims for under half-a-second load time. Do you want to know how to reduce your page load time? This article will provide you with guidelines on what causes slow loading times, and how to implement strategies that will help you improve the speed at which your blog loads. Read more to learn about a few ways you can instantly increase conversions and enhance user experience on your blog.
What is an ideal page speed?
According to a 2019 study by Portent, an Integrated Digital Marketing Agency in Seattle, a 0-4 second load time is best for conversion rates, and the first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. In fact, the highest e-commerce conversion rates occur on pages with load times between 0-2 seconds.
Why is page speed important?
We all know that first impressions are important, and your website’s loading time is often the first impression you make on a potential customer. If your site takes too long to load, you’re likely to lose that customer before they even see what you have to offer.
Slow loading times can also negatively impact your search engine ranking, as Google and other search engines now take page loading time into account when determining where your site should rank in search results.
A Few Facts about page speed
- The first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. (Portent, 2019)
- Website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time (between seconds 0-5)
- The average mobile web page takes 15.3 seconds to load. (Google Research, 2018)
- Nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer. (Unbounce, 2019)
- Of all the people surveyed, half said they’d be willing to give up animation and video for faster load times. (Unbounce, 2019)
- The highest e-commerce conversion rates occur on pages with load times between 0-2 seconds. (Portent, 2019)
- Website conversion rates drop by an average of 2.11% with each additional second of load time (between seconds 0-9). (Portent, 2019)
- The highest e-commerce conversion rates occur on pages with load times between 0-2 seconds. (Portent, 2019)
- The optimal average request count — the number of individual pieces of content needed to display the entire web page — is fewer than 50. (Google, 2018)
- By compressing images and text, 25% of pages could save more than 250KB and 10% can save more than 1MB (which contributes to page load times). (Google, 2018)
- Today, even though most web traffic occurs on 4G instead of 3G, the majority of mobile sites are still slow and bloated due to too many page elements. (Google, 2018)
Why is page speed so important?
In short, it can have a major impact on your bottom line. Here are a few ways in which page loading time can affect your business:
- Conversion Rates
One of the most direct ways page loading time affects your business is through conversion rates. A study by Kissmetrics found that a one-second delay in page loading time can result in a 7% reduction in conversion rates. And if your site takes more than 10 seconds to load, you can expect to see an even bigger drop-off in conversions.
- Bounce Rate
Another way slow page loading times can hurt your business is by increasing your bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only.
Most common causes of slow page speed:
Images are often the heaviest elements on a webpage, and can significantly slow down the loading time if they are not properly optimized. Images should be saved in an appropriate format. JPEG images are much smaller in size compared to PNG or GIF. So a web page with JPEG images will load faster. Avoid using any image above 1 MB in size.
1. JavaScript Issues
Though JavaScript/jQuery plugins have made adding dynamic content to websites more convenient but incorrect implementation of it can cripple a website’s page load speed.
2. Too Much Flash Content
Flash is good for interactivity but due to its bulkier size, it causes a website to load slowly. You can replace flash content with HTML5 in order to prevent the slowness of your website.
3. Excessive HTTP Requests
Too many JavaScript, CSS, and image files can lead to higher HTTP requests. A browser makes too many requests to load each of these files and thereby reduces the page load speed.
4. Not Making Use of Caching Techniques
Caching is a technique that helps in storing frequently used data points in the ‘cached memory’ for ready use and thereby improve the performance of websites. By implementing browser/HTTP caching and server-side caching, a huge improvement in the performance of your website can be achieved.
5. Unclean Code
If your website’s code is poorly organized, it can take longer for the browser to render the page. This is often due to inefficient CSS and JavaScript code that isn’t properly minified or compressed.
6. Not Using gZIP Compression
gZIP compression is a useful method to wrap all the web objects (images, CSS, JavaScript files, etc) in a single container before sending those over to requesting browser. In this way, it improves the page speed.
Compression reduces response time by cutting short the size of data before transfer to visitors’ browsers. This helps in serving the requested content much faster.
7. Too Many Ads
Displaying advertisements is inevitable for monetizing high-traffic websites and increasing profit. But too many ads reduces the page speed.
But there should be a balance and that shouldn’t come at the cost of user satisfaction. Avoid displaying too many ads.
8. Not Using a CDN Service
A content delivery network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. Depending upon the geographic location of your visitor, the requested content gets served by the node located at the nearest available data center. It would minimize the round-trip time (RTT) and serve the requested content in a much quicker time.
9. Low bandwidth hosting
Low bandwidth also reduces page speed. Bandwidth depends on your web page size, as well as the number of visitors to your website and the number of pages they visit. As a thumb rule for an average page size of 50KB, 20,000 visitors per month, and 5 pages per visitor your website will need about 5000MB, or 5GB, of bandwidth per month. Any less will slow the page speed.
10. Heavy use of plugins or external scripts
Plugins are used to enhance the functionality of a website. But adding too many plugins to a WordPress website can slow down the page speed. After adding each plugin one should check the page loading time It should not exceed 3 sec. You should stop adding plugins at the point where the page loading time goes above 3 sec.
Conclusion
Reducing your page load time is essential for keeping visitors on your site and increasing conversions. There are a number of ways to do this, including optimizing your images, minifying your code, and using a content delivery network. By taking the time to implement these tips, you can see a significant improvement in your page speed, which will lead to more happy customers and better business results.