4 Reasons Why Website Speed Matters

There are many online discussions about site speed, and some people ask, ‘Does website speed Matter?’

Speed is a crucial part of the user experience. Does UX Matter? You bet it does!

UX is one of the most important parts of web design and development. People don’t always remember what a site looks like, but they will remember a great user experience—just like they will remember a bad user experience.

I have always loved speed optimisation. I have found that having a fast website helps with bounce rate and has improved my organic search rankings, too.

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential client visiting your website for the first time. They click on your link in social media and wait! Or they choose a menu, and the page goes blank and stays that way while it loads in all your gorgeous graphics, well-shot promotional videos, and fancy text. 

Do you wait? I don’t!

Even if your site has a user-friendly design, poor website speed will most often cause a potential client to leave and search elsewhere.

Website speed is vital to how customers judge your business when visiting your website. If a website doesn’t meet the instant gratification that has become the norm when searching for a product or service (or just browsing the Internet in general), your website and, in turn, your business may lose clients.

Your website is your best potential marketing asset, and if it’s slow, it won’t do the job!

If you are running an e-commerce business, you want customers hooked on your products and returning to make new purchases, so for this to happen, your website needs to be up to speed and optimised for performance.

Vodafone improved its LCP by 31%, resulting in an 8% increase in sales, a 15% increase in their lead to visit rate, and an 11% increase in their cart to visit rate.

wpostats

There are several important factors to consider when optimising your website speed so that something like a simple click or download doesn’t get lost in loading.

Let’s look at the top four reasons why website speed matters for you and your business.

First Impressions Matter

Imagine a potential client’s judgment about your business when the website page loading speed takes twice as long as it should.

They likely aren’t impressed and may choose another business that cares about its online presence.

When your website speed isn’t up to par, how will customers trust that your business structure, products, and services won’t be the same? 

First impressions are everything for a business, especially when checking out your website.

People make their first impression of your business within 50 milliseconds.

If your website loads quickly, you’re in good shape to impress potential or existing clients with your offerings and wow them with their experience.

If your website runs well, they will assume your business is professional, reliable, and efficient. If not, you must look at the root of the website speed problem or risk losing more business. 

People Are Less Patient Now Than Ever

This is the age of instant gratification. Customers want and expect everything as quickly as they can get their hands on it and enjoy a resolution as quickly as possible. The same goes for a web search.

If a potential customer searches for products or services in your niche and clicks on your website, they want to know that you can solve their problem as quickly as possible. 

47% of people expect your site to load in less than 2 seconds

40% will abandon it entirely if it takes longer than 3 seconds.

85% of internet users expect a mobile site to load as fast or faster than on their desktop.

Kissmetrics

If you want your visitors to stay, your site should load quickly and convey your value proposition within a few seconds.

If you’re online looking for something and not going out to brick-and-mortar businesses for products, you’re generally looking for something immediate. Whether on a mobile device or desktop, your website speed should reflect the immediate nature that customers will be looking for.

Fast loading times = satisfied customers. 

UX Design is a Priority

When building your website, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What makes the website easy to navigate? Are the design and speed up to par? Could the design be simplified for a better experience? Will your visitors leave feeling like it was a good experience?

User-experience design (or UX design) also operates on the immediate nature of people looking to solve a problem or purchase a product/service.

The faster your visitors can find what they’re looking for, the happier they will be with their experience. Your website needs to reflect that. 

For a positive user experience, you must remember what a customer may be looking for and how fast you can get it to them. If your website is slow, it won’t matter if all the information they need is front and centre because they’ll already be looking elsewhere. 

Website Speed Affects Your Rankings

Regardless of your SEO savvy, website speed problems will negatively affect how you appear in search engines.

When potential or existing customers are looking for something on Google, the results are affected by speed rankings.

If your website speed is slow, your bounce rate will likely also be high, and your rankings will suffer doubly as a result.

If a page takes more than a few seconds to load, a customer will look elsewhere. Similarly, if it takes more than a few clicks or a scroll to find what they need, a customer will not continue to browse your site to reach your business.

Having optimised pages and ensuring that your server speed is fast, not just when it comes to the function of your website but also in how your business appears in a search. 

Google has a fabulous tool called Google LightHouse that scores your webpage and shows Google Core Web Vitals.

These are my scores for this blog post

I can fix your slow website speed

I have been obsessed with site speed for years; you may have noticed lara.net.au/ is high-speed, and that's not by accident :)

Whilst you can use your marketing budget on paid advertisements and spend all day every day on social media, that can be an expensive, time-consuming route that does not necessarily bring the kind of web traffic you desire.

There are countless marketing tactics and strategies, all claiming to give you overnight success, but it’s all BS. These “gurus” are trying to sell you into the dream that digital space is easy. It’s not! It takes a lot of hard work.

With a WordPress VIP Intensive, I can audit your website and optimise it to get your website speed to where you would like it to be.

I hope you found this post on Website Speed helpful

Until Next time