The loading speed of a website is an important aspect of search engine rankings and user experience. The likelihood that someone will abandon a page increases with every second it takes for the page to load. Although most marketers recognise the importance of improving their website’s load times, it is frequently neglected or ignored, which can have a major impact on conversion rates. Understanding what search engines and users want from your site speed will help you deliver the right modifications to boost conversion rates, enhance ranking possibilities, and offer a better user experience.
Website load time statistics
A website that loads slowly can be a major turnoff to visitors and may harm your search engine rankings. While search engines like Google have basic benchmark recommendations in place, end users’ standards might be even more exacting and impactful on the financial bottom line.
1. 85% of landing pages take longer than 5 seconds to load.
Although the majority of websites have improved in speed over time, they still fall short of Google’s expectations, which demand that load times be kept below five seconds. Consumers are also less tolerant; most people abandon a website after waiting only three seconds for it to load.
2. Mobile load speeds are 2.4x slower than desktop load speeds.
Many years ago, page speed was a ranking factor, and with Google’s move to mobile-first indexing, it is even more essential to pay attention to your website’s mobile loading speeds. Mobile pages took on average 11.4 seconds to load in 2020, whereas desktop pages required an average of 4.7 seconds to load. Unfortunately, the majority of mobile web pages take longer to load than their desktop counterparts, and users expect websites to load more quickly on their phones.
Users are increasingly likely to see these landing pages from their mobile devices, thanks to marketing techniques that target individuals through social media campaigns. Users will bounce if the page takes too long to load, which will result in your website missing out on a significant number of potential consumers.
3. Improving speed by 0.1 seconds can significantly decrease bounce rates.
On more than 30 million user sessions from a variety of sectors, Deloitte tracked the influence of load speeds on bounce rates for the homepage, product listing pages, and product detail pages. A 0.1 second decrease in page speed was associated with improved bounce rates, more page views per session, and higher conversion rates across all page types and industries, according to the report.
4. A 1 second delay in load time can cause an 11% decrease in page views.
Google values fast websites, and the quicker your site loads, the more likely it is to rank in search results. Not only does this load time have an impact on bounce rates, but it also affects how well your website crawls when search engines crawl it. The average search engine crawls one website every three seconds, so the quicker your site can respond, the more indexed and able to appear in search results in your pages will be.
5. Users visit more pages when a site loads faster.
Users visited an average of 5.6 additional pages when the average loading speed was two seconds, according to a survey by the Platform Provider Section, as opposed to eight seconds. This can indicate more product pages viewed and greater total purchase amounts when users convert to e-commerce sites.
6. Online shoppers are less likely to make a purchase from a slow site.
The transaction process is one of the most important phases of the conversion funnel. According to an Unbounce poll, 70% of customers say page speed affects their willingness to buy. Many people will abandon the process if it takes too long to complete an order, resulting in lost sales.
7. Most users prefer adequate page speed over animation and video.
Users value a quick website experience so much that if it meant the site would load faster, half of them would give up animations and videos on a webpage. This information opens up a significant possibility for many sites to significantly shrink their websites in order to improve page speeds and provide a better user experience.
How to improve page load time
Site speed clearly has an impact on bounce rates, ranking, and conversion rates. Improving the loading speeds of your website by optimising images, reducing code complexity, and employing caching strategies is a good place to start.
1. Optimise images.
Oversized pictures are one of the most common reasons for sluggish web pages. The larger and higher-resolution the image is, the more data it takes to load. Choosing the best file format, compressing file size, and utilising responsive images are three simple ways to enhance your photographs.
The average website size for desktop and mobile is 1.7-1.9 MB, according to a Match Metrics study. Google recommends keeping the site size below 0.5 MB, and 25% of websites could shrink their site by more than 250 KB simply by compressing their images, according to a study run by Searchmetrics.
2. Minify JavaScript and CSS files.
When a website has a lot of JavaScript and CSS files, it may take longer than necessary to process server requests, especially when browsers make numerous HTTP requests to access the site’s material. Minification eliminates needless lines and white space from the code, making the entire file size smaller and lowering page load time.
Duplicate code that causes their site to be much larger than it should be is one of the most frequent reasons why a website might become slow. Many websites have additional resources, such as images, CSS files and JS libraries. These unused or underused plugins and applications are often eliminated in order to improve performance.
3. Reduce the use of Flash content.
Although Flash media may make a website more interactive and dynamic, the size of these files might severely impact a site’s loading speed. It’s preferable to reduce or remove all of these files.
4. Implement caching techniques.
Caching a web page allows servers to store the HTML file of a page, so the next time someone views that page, they do not have to go through the trouble of converting it. Instead, it may simply send the pre-prepared file directly to the browser.
5. Use AMP.
AMP pages are stripped down to the bare essentials in order to load quickly. Because they’re reduced to fundamental components, AMP sites may utilize only a portion of HTML and JavaScript elements. Lazy loading is sometimes required because to AMP’s restriction on the number of HTML and JavaScript components that may be used. An optional content delivery network (CDN) instantaneously caches and applies performance enhancements to AMP-enabled sites.
Focusing on your website’s speed and load times should not be frightening. While site speed is a ranking component, Google makes modifications to its algorithm based on user preferences on a regular basis. Google’s objective is to send people to websites that will offer them with the greatest experience possible. The only way to increase your search engine rankings is by optimising and improving your website so that it loads faster for users. You may achieve better conversion rates, lower bounce rates, and increased consumer satisfaction by optimizing and expanding your site to serve customers more quickly.
