The business world moves fast. Potential customers often make split-second decisions that take them down the path to purchase or away from it. In order to keep up with their need for instant information, our websites have to be up-to-speed. (Pun definitely intended.)
Not only does speed matter from a customer experience perspective but also from an SEO one. If you have never heard of SEO before, take a minute and read our previous post on The Necessity of SEO. That article sums up what it is and why you need it. Don’t’ worry. We’ll wait…
Eliminating Wait Times and Reducing Website Bounces
Back? Alright – let’s discuss wait times and bounce rates. Recent analytics indicate that mobile landing pages take over 15 seconds to load, whereas it only takes visitors three seconds to decide if they want to continue waiting for your website or move on to something else. That is not a great statistic and puts slow websites at quite a disadvantage! Slower websites mean that companies are losing out on web traffic and potential customers.
If you think that may be happening on your website, we recommend taking a look at your Google Analytics to see where the majority of your traffic is coming from – either desktop, tablet or mobile devices. If your traffic comes mainly from mobile devices, focus on optimizing that part first.
Your analysis can also tell you where your highest bounce rates are. Bounces are when a visitor decides they’re done with your website and leaves. Consider the possibility that these visitors are leaving because of higher wait times. That means that if you optimize site speed for both mobile and desktop devices, you may experience lower bounce rates.
How to Increase Site Speed and SEO Scores
Are you starting to have doubts about whether your site is fast enough to suit your customers’ attention spans? We recommend you check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights. All you have to do is plug in your website’s domain name, and the tool will provide feedback as to your site’s speed and ways to optimize it so as to go faster. If their recommendations seem a bit confusing and use a lot of tech jargon, come talk to website pros like us so we can help.
