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Lengthy load times cost your organization money. Click the button below to see a quick two second demonstration of page load times in action, then we'll talk a bit more about how excessive load times can impact your bottom dollar.
The time it took to transition from that previous page to the one you are looking at now is the "load time" for this page. Any time a visitor clicks a link that leads to a new page, they will be forced to wait while that page's content "loads." How long this waiting period lasts can make or break your success on the web.
The loose expectation that we all seem to agree on is two seconds of waiting. Once the wait time exceeds two seconds, you can expect a dramatic increase in "bounces". Bounce is the term for when a visitor lands on a page and does nothing, "bouncing" back to the page they came from. Often times, this is the search page that brought the visitor to your site. Guess where they go next? Most likely to your competitor's page.
Ouch! Four seconds is painful, no? How many visitors do you think would stick around for an average load time like that? When the visitor gives up on waiting, not only have you lost a potential customer, you have also sent an unintentional message to Google - site visitors sometimes don't find what they are looking for on your website. Google always remembers outcomes like this.
Major search engines like Google have a simple primary goal: Get searchers where they need to be in as few steps as possible. This is why Google finds a "bounce" a particularly compelling metric to pay attention to. Sites with a lower number of bounces must provide their visitors with the information they were initially looking for, or else why are the visitors hanging around?
It sends the message that visitors struggle to find what they are looking for on your site. Your website could have the best information presented in the most creative and beautiful ways. But if you allow a load time over two seconds, the outcome can be roughly the same as having a low-information or seemingly untrustworthy website. This is not a message you want to send to Google!
It can get worse, yes. Mobile devices, which now makes up over half of all internet traffic, are especially vulnerable to lengthy load times. Not only does the "on the go" (aka mobile) factor cause mobile visitors to be more impatient, mobile devices also suffer from having less "tech power" than their desktop bretheren. Neglecting the mobile experience can cut your website traffic from Google roughly in half.
Yes, by half. Sometimes more. If the mobile experience is lacking, mobile traffic will not be directed to your site. To summarize, the "penalty" of lengthy load times is two-fold. You lose out on all bounced visitors, often driving them directly into the digital arms of your competitors. You also send that undesirable message to Google that visitors don't find what they are looking for on your website. With every message like this sent, you can expect your listing on Google to tumble further and further back in the results pages. Traffic to your site will decline as a result.
Worry not! There are steps to take that will reduce that page load time. Some of these steps are complicated, but there are several that are quite easy and inexpensive - especially compared to the cost of missed opportunity. Often times these simpler steps are all that seperate you from acheiving that two second max load time! Reach out to me today to find out how easy it can be to reclaim lost traffic that belongs to you.