Even if you have an awesome-looking website with equally impressive content, these do not guarantee you’ll attract leads if your page speed is lousy. Page speed is the rate at which media and content of a single, unique page would load. The average load time speed of all domain pages is used to calculate site speed.
It’s also important to remember that dwell time decreases and bounce rates increase the slower your website and its pages load or respond to users. Ensuring that you have optimal page speed is critical if you want your website to perform well and is optimized for search engines.
Here are some more reasons page speed should be a priority:
1. It Affects Your Conversion Rate
Page speed impacts your conversion rate, which affects the bottom line of your website. Slow-loading pages also lead to decreased dwell time and higher bounce rates.
Dwell time is how long people stay on your website, whereas bounce rates refer to how quickly they leave without taking any action. High bounce rates signal search engines that your website may be spammy or irrelevant to what users are searching for.
Since it lowers your UX rating significantly, it affects your conversion rates. It is why your pages need to load in 2 to 2.5 seconds and address page issues as fast as you can.
2. It Impacts Your User Experience
UX design is as important as your web design. Not only should a website’s purpose be to publish its information, but also to give visitors valuable experiences. It is optimal that your website is, first and foremost, mobile responsive.
According to the latest Global Overview Report by We Are Social, there are currently 5.22 billion users of mobile phones—that’s 66.6 percent of the global population.
When your page loads slowly or does not respond well when viewed on a smartphone or tablet, it gives a poor user experience, thus increasing bounce rates. It is crucial since Google also measures UX and average page speed to determine your SEO ranking.
3. It Impacts Your Search Engine Results Page Ranking
As mentioned previously, when a page fails to load quickly, it can impact your SEO ranking. Search engines prioritize page results ranking that ensures the most relevant websites to their users, providing excellent online experiences.
4. It’s a Priority in Google’s Core Web Vitals Updates
Page speed and experience are more important than ever as Google rolls out their Core Web Vitals update and the new page experience metrics, and measuring page speed is becoming more complex.
Google measures factors like mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS, intrusive interstitials, and page experience. The following metrics are used to evaluate the page experience: loading time, interactivity, and visual integrity.
5. It’s Affected by Media and Coding
Media and coding are two leading causes for a page having slow speed. The size and format of your media need to be optimal so it does not bug your website down. Videos should also be embedded via a lightbox or lazy loading, so it does cause slow page loading.
It would help if you also streamline your website’s backend by minimizing JavaScript and combining CSS. Minimizing JavaScript involves eliminating whitespace, semicolons, and shortened functions and their names. To speed up the loading process, external CSS files can be unified into one central file, allowing the visitor’s browser to request one CSS file instead of several.
Conclusion
There are a plethora of page tools that you can use to improve page speed. If you are using WordPress, there are quality plugins you can use to optimize page speed. Google also has its tools for boosting website performance.
In addition, you can also hire web experts who can keep page speeds optimal. Aside from repairing your page speed woes, experts can also conduct routine checks and maintenance.
At Internet Zone I, you can be assured that our team will identify the best web design and SEO/SEM strategies that will boost your website and bring in the most revenues. We also offer Google My Business reinstatement services, Google reputation management, SEO content services, and so much more. Contact us today!