When it comes to creating a successful website, page speed matters. Your business’s website is the single most important digital asset you have — it serves as the main gateway for existing and potential customers alike. That’s why your website must be fast, reliable, and secure in order to provide customers with an exceptional experience. Simply put, if a web page takes too long to load, users will not stick around to find out what is on that page, or even make it to that site in the first place — which will hinder conversions and new purchases.

Improving your website’s page speed will significantly improve user satisfaction levels while ensuring that your site offers helpful information as quickly as possible — both of which are essential components when it comes to success in the crowded online marketplace. In this blog post, we'll discuss why web page speed matters and how you can optimize yours for more traffic & profits!

Understanding the Basics of Page Speed

We’ll break it down in non-technical terms first —  if a web page takes too long to load, you usually assume as a user that the website is either broken or there is something wrong with your internet. This is not something that web designers, search engines and companies in general want to encourage! They want to ensure the best possible experience at all times, and page speed is a huge part of that. It’s safe to assume that users on the internet have the attention span of a 2-month old puppy, and if a website takes too long to load, you can completely lose that user. 

Essentially, page speed refers to the amount of time it takes for a web page to load and render properly. The faster the page loads, the better user experience you will provide.

How Slow Pages Impact Your SEO and Conversion Rates

When it comes to impacting your SEO and conversion rates, the speed of pages on a website can make all the difference. Studies have shown that websites that take more than 3 seconds to load on average will decrease user interest in staying on the page by almost 50%, significantly reducing potential conversions. Here are some stats on page load time (in seconds) and resulting bounce rates (when people leave your site):

• 1s to 3s: the probability of bounce increases 32%
• 1s to 5s: the probability of bounce increases 90%
• 1s to 6 s: the probability of bounce increases 106%
• 1s to 10s: the probability of bounce increases 123%
  

This slow loading can also cause search engine algorithms like Google to rank your site lower, as they prioritize faster sites in comparison. Google even has a tool called PageSpeed Insights that is solely dedicated to measuring load times for your website on Desktop, Tablet and Mobile to help you better optimize it and make sure it passes their requirements — this shows just how important this metric is to them and how they want the websites they show to load.  To succeed in this digital age, there is no room for slow page speeds on any website. 

Identifying Areas of Your Website That Need Improvement

Take time to dive deep into the analytics of your website and learn who is visiting your website and from where — this may give clues as to why certain areas might be performing better than others. Additionally, browsing through user reviews or feedback can provide incredibly useful insight as to how visitors are interacting with different pages. Lastly, evaluate the design and aesthetics that users encounter – understanding what resonates and what doesn’t is key to delivering a great experience and improving problem points. 

Reviewing loading times and minimizing dynamic images or high graphic contents are just a few steps that can be taken to make sure your website stays ahead of the competition.  Overall, putting in the effort upfront to identify areas for improvement will help you ensure that you’re driving success towards the overall goals of your website.

Testing and monitoring your page speed is essential to guarantee you are meeting the goals of your website. Fortunately, with the availability of various page speed tools like PageSpeed Insights, understanding and improving page speed have become easier than ever. These tools can:

• Determine the time to load a full page or individual elements of the page
• Check for existing problems and errors
• Identify any larger issues affecting your performance metrics
  

With these insights in hand, you can quickly diagnose and troubleshoot webpage issues relevant to achieving desired outcomes.

Tips for Improving Page Speed

There are a few easy steps that you can take to help improve your page speed. 90% of the time, the biggest culprit of bad page speed times is the size of the images that are on a website. Our rule of thumb is that every image needs to be less than 200 kb in size. For context — taking a picture on your phone is about 5-10 mb, which is 20 times the correct size for web. Know how when you upload photos to a Facebook album it takes a while to process? This is because their system needs to reduce the size of your images to better load in their apps and website. Optimizing your images should be a regular practice before uploading them to your site. 

Browser caching and compressing content can also help reduce page loading time, as well as reducing redirects within your site.

Another factor that contributes to page speed is the amount of code that goes into a website — this usually stems from loading on extra ‘features’ or animations to a page. This is where a balance needs to be struck between making the website look and function nicely, but also ensuring it’s small enough to load in under 2 seconds.

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Page speed is essential for website success. Whether you’re looking to attract organic traffic or increase your conversion rates — having a fast-loading website is essential. You can improve the overall page speed of your website by identifying weak points, testing and monitoring progress, or hiring an experienced web team like Nimble Digital to help get the job done right the first time.  

Ready to turbocharge your page loading performance? Nimble Digital can build a better, faster website for you — our websites are lightning-fast and built for conversion. Contact us today!

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