Optimizing your website’s page load speed can do wonders for your site’s traffic and sales. Research has shown that visitors will leave a site if they cannot find what they are looking for within the first 7 seconds. That’s 7 seconds, including page load time, to make a first impression and keep your potential customer’s interest. So the sooner your site can load, the more time your visitors will have to find a reason to stay on your site.
Because Google Cares
A faster site will reduce your bounce rate and so on, but did you know that Google uses page speed to determine search engine rankings? That’s right, website load speed is just one of the many factors that Google uses to determine your site’s rank in search engine listings.
Visitor Connection Speed
While there are many factors in a site’s page load speed, the one thing that you cannot control is a visitor’s internet connection speed. I strongly recommend using a program such as Google Analytics to review your visitor’s connection speeds. Here on Marketing WiseGuy, over 95% of my visitors have some sort of high speed internet connection, which gives me some slack when deciding on site optimization techniques (like which image format to use). If your niche attracts an overwhelming amount of dial-up users then you may want to think carefully about your site’s design (use less images, etc).
Let’s Get to Work
So let’s work on reducing your site’s page load time, especially on common landing pages like your homepage. First, identify any specific landing pages that you would like to improve. Find out their current page load speed by using a page speed test like the ones below:
Record your initial page load speed times so you can track your progress as you optimize your site.
Faster is Better
There is always room for improvement, so even if your site is loading within a few seconds, any time that can be cut from your page speed will be beneficial for your website.
Optimization Tips
I will be releasing a follow-up article this week with a number of ways to optimize your site’s page load speed. Please check back with us or sign up to our RSS feed to receive future articles.
