A slow site is a real pain for visitors. The low loading speed of the site pages is annoying, making it difficult to register, make a purchase or make a payment. Loading delays lead to lower conversions and loss of audience. Therefore, the message of search engines that the page loading speed becomes a ranking factor and directly affects the popularity of a web resource was quite expected.
Why should a website be fast?
To begin with, let’s dwell on why you need to pay attention to the site’s speed. Loading a page in 1 or 2 seconds does not affect the comfort of information perception. It is not.
Studies show that the speed of an Internet resource is essential for any site: a store, a news or corporate portal, a cloud service, and so on. Read more about hosting at Zomro.
Depending on the speed indicator:
- Bounce rate is the number of users who close a tab within a few seconds after going to it from a search site.
- Conversion is the percentage of visitors who completed the target action (bought a product, registered, followed a link).
- The number and cost of purchases in the basket when checking out on the online store’s website.
- The profit of the resource’s owner, regardless of how he monetizes it.
- The time the user spent on the site. The more it is on the pages, the higher the search resource evaluates relevance for a particular phrase;
- User satisfaction from visiting, that is, the ability to re-click from a search or a direct link;
- Brand perception in the market and increase in its popularity among users.
Search engine optimization and most other site metrics, one way or another, depending on how fast it works. That is, on the quality of the server hosting the CMS, database, and other information.
Consequently, both the financial result from using the site and the return on investment in its creation depend on the correct hosting choice.
What is the optimal page load speed?
Today, to design the appearance of websites, they began to increase the video, graphics, connect drop-down menus, and massive slide shows. On the one hand, a beautiful picture attracts visitors. On the other hand, with an increase in the volume of the site page, the download speed noticeably decreases. Therefore, SEO specialists received another task: how to optimize the site loading speed from the client and server sides and fully preserve the functionality.
First, you need to find out what download speed is needed for the site. Answer: less than a second. Indeed, according to research results by Google engineers, users notice a delay of 0.4 seconds, and almost 80% of them do not make a second attempt if the resource has been loaded for too long. But an increase in speed of only 0.5 seconds in 80-90% of cases gives a noticeable increase in attendance, a decrease in bounces, an increase in search rankings, and an increase in the average check and revenue.
Loading speed is a competitive advantage of the site in the market
The demand for online stores and sites selling services does not need to be proven. The volume of sales in the network is constantly increasing, and since 2020 the pace of development has become explosive due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But users carefully choose who to give their money to. A profitable business will only gain a competitive advantage. Another feature is that the competition in this market is very high. Therefore, any opportunity to “pull” the user to you will not be excessive.
Download speed is one of the most important tools of such competition. Firstly, it allows you to increase the amount of organic traffic. Secondly, reduce the cost of promotion.
But most importantly, only some consider this factor a way to attract visitors. Therefore, the site owner who uses this “weapon” will have an advantage.