Why Your Website's Page Speed Matters

By Author: AKM
Total Articles: 686
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Welcome to the future, where attention spans are extremely short, content is ubiquitous, and website loading speed reigns supreme. When it comes to ranking and conversions, technical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) details are just as important as the website design and content quality. Page loading time can mean the difference between your company making a sale and your competitor making a sale, and it can even mean the difference between being found at all in search engine results. Continue reading for a comprehensive list of tips on how to improve website page speed.

How critical is site speed for SEO? The time it takes for your webpage to load in a given browser is referred to as website load speed. More engagement and higher conversion rates are associated with faster website loading speeds. People will abandon a page if it takes too long to load. Those who were fortunate enough to have access to the internet in the early days of dial-up remember patiently waiting for a page to load. Those were the days.

Why Your Website Matters
Your website is important because it is the first impression you make ...
... on your customers. It is your primary online presence—your digital storefront's front door. It should be simple to navigate, quick to load, and provide a simple and intuitive user experience (UX). The speed with which your website loads determines whether you will even get a second of their attention. If you miss this, you've lost more than just a sale—you've made a bad impression. Because humans (and bots) will leave a page almost immediately if it does not load instantly, website load speed is critical. We're talking milliseconds for a human to determine whether or not a website is trustworthy, reliable, and professional—and what does it all boil down to? Pagespeed and the user's desire for timely access to high-quality information

Websites that load quickly (and look great as a result of high-quality website design) build trust between your company and the buyer, resulting in more traffic, longer visits, and higher conversion rates. Improving your website's speed and quality will also help you appear more relevant in search engine results.

So What Affects Site Speed?
There are numerous factors that influence the speed with which your website loads. To name a few: the amount of content on your page (page weight), the web design, excessive code (CSS, HTML, Javascript, 3rd party scripts), server response time, unoptimized or compressed images, network conditions, and hosting. In this article, we'll look at the technical details you can change to improve page speed and thus increase conversion rates.

What is a good website speed, and how long should it take to load your website?
The significance of website loading speed cannot be overstated. According to a recent study, one in every two visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than six seconds to load. According to other research, it could be up to three seconds. That's not much time. People want immediate answers to their questions, and in the two to three seconds after landing on your website, they make a decision—is this company trustworthy? SEO best practises change frequently (for example, Google retiring Universal Analytics), and it can be difficult to keep up with all of the emerging strategies for optimising the site experience for your users and top-line revenue.

What Are the Risks of Poor SEO? Why Is Website Speed Important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
How important is the time it takes for a website to load? Page load time is the single most important factor in increasing conversion rates and traffic to your website. It has the potential to significantly improve site performance. It makes no difference what Google or another search engine giant says because the answers are obvious in human behaviour. Consider how much time you spend waiting for something to load. Humans thin-slice in order to get to information as quickly as possible, and if your site isn't fast enough, they've already left. Great content, mobile optimization, high-quality links, high-quality information, site layout, visuals, and ease of use are other factors that help your rankings on major search engines like Google. Believe it or not, the CMS you use has a significant impact on SEO! Webp images, for example, will allow websites to load extremely quickly, which is one of the reasons Umbraco is the most SEO-friendly CMS available.

How to Speed Up your Website
Here are some best practises for optimising your website's speed and performance:

Use a content delivery network (CDN) to significantly improve page speed and site performance.
Image and graphics optimization (many image optimizers are available online.)
Make sure your website is mobile-first optimised.
Keep track of how many requests are active on the page (think add-ons like forms, chat bots, ex: Hotjar embeds, social widgets, etc.)
Reduce the time it takes to get to the first byte.
Check your hosting plan again.
Make use of browser caching (reduces browser costs AND increases page speed.)
Gzip compression should be used (the gold standard for lossless compression on the web.)
Change to http/2 because, unlike http/1, it can handle multiple requests at the same time.
Use no redirects (it slows page speed.)
Use no embeds or external scripts (that is, don't bombard people with pop-ups!)
Collaborate with a partner who is knowledgeable in all of these areas and more.

It may even be time to think about getting a new website to improve site performance. How old is your website, and when was it last updated?