The load time of your website is so important.
People searching on the internet don’t have the patience to wait 5 seconds for a website to load. Instead their finger will hover around that red cross to just close the page down, never to return.
Research has shown that just a one-second delay in page load time means a seven percent decline in sales, 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a seven percent loss in conversions.
Your website may have a fabulous design with awesome features but with slow loading time, none of that matters because less people will even get to your website in the first place.
Attention spans are growing smaller and patience is thinner than ever. We live in a fast paced society where we all expect instant results. In addition to that, a slow loading website impact your SEO because it affects how Google sees your page. Speed is a ranking factor Google uses to measure your page and if you have a slow loading website your presence in Google search will be impacted.
If you are running Facebook Ads that this is another reason to have a fast loading landing page as a slow landing page can affect the results of your Ads. Facebook looks at user experience and if people are clicking on your ad and then not waiting for the page to load, Facebook will take notice and your ad cost will be effected.
Here are a few common issues that could be affecting the load time of your website. Fixing these things could speed up your website quite substantially.
1. Under-performing hosting account.
Your choice of hosting provider is important especially once the traffic to your website starts to increase. You need to ensure your account will handle spikes in traffic to your website, has minimal downtime and that support is accessible when you need it.
2. Too many plugins on your WordPress website.
Excessive plugins can be a problem because the more plugins your site has, the more work it has to do when it loads. Beware of outdated plugins that can slow down your site instead of improving its performance.
3. Uncompressed images on your webpages.
The quality and size of an image affects its loading time. Having a high-resolution image on every page means your site will load slower.
4. Free WordPress themes.
They are free for a reason! Invest a small amount (around $100 should be more than enough) and purchase a WordPress theme that is built by a reputable developer that offers updates.
5. Complicated design and/or coding.
Where possible keep it is as simple as possible while also providing a good customer experience.
Not sure where you’re website is at in terms of it’s loading speed? Here is a great site you can try to check the speed. If you need help reviewing and revising your website to make it run more efficiently, then contact me today about how I can help.
I would love to hear your thoughts...