In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, “I wanna go fast!” It’s no secret that loading speed is an essential component of the user experience. When I encounter a page that takes a long time to load, or doesn’t seem to load at all, I can almost hear the beeps of old dial-up internet on my first computer. Not exactly the best way to make a sale. Here are some tips and tricks on why speed is so important and what you can do to kick your page into overdrive.
Check out these stats from Kissmetrics:
- As page load time increases, page abandonment also increases
- 73% of mobile users have tried to access a site that loaded too slowly
- Half of surveyed users would not wait more than 10 seconds for a page to load
- 19% would not wait more than 5 seconds
- 79% of users who were not happy with site performance said they were less likely to purchase from that site in the future
- A 1 second delay results in a 7% reduction in conversions and a 16% reduction in customer satisfaction
Can we just take a second to think about that last one? A single second delay means a 7% drop in conversions. As an eCommerce site, you literally can’t afford a slow page.
Fortunately, there are ways to improve page speed. Below is a list of common ways to boost page speed and performance:
1. Optimize images – Make the image file size as small as possible while still retaining the integrity of the image.
2. Be mindful of redirects – Redirects are important because they allow you to maintain search rankings. However, when a lot of redirects are piled together, it slows down the server as it makes its way through each one.
3. Compact your code – the fewer bytes of data the site has to load, the quicker the load time will be. This applies across Javascript, CSS, and HTML. There are a variety of free tools available to compress all three types.
4. Use browser caching – Caching stores recently used data on a user’s device. If a user returns to a recent page, the browser can pull data from the cache, rather than server, which makes it load quicker.
5. Don’t block above-the-fold content – When there are blocking resources on the page, it causes a delay that can prevent all above-the-fold content (what shows in the screen without scrolling) from loading. Above-the-fold content should load first, and fast, while the rest of the site load under-the-fold.
Another consideration is making sure that your site is optimized for speed on mobile as well as desktop. Mobile pages tend to load slower anyway because there is less bandwidth and processing power. However, you can still improve speed by reducing file sizes, having a mobile-friendly site layout, and keeping images small. For more tips, check out our previous post on the differences between mobile and desktop. Google also has a helpful guide on mobile speed analysis.
Our favorite way to analyze speed: PageSpeed Insights from Google Developers
PageSpeed is super easy to use and provides valuable information about how fast a page is on mobile and desktop. Just enter the URL of the site you want to check and PageSpeed will give the page a score out of 100. A score of 85 or more means that the page is generally doing well. It will also list suggestions of items you should fix or consider fixing and provides instructions on how to do so. Note that PageSpeed does not analyze the entire site at once – it analyzes the specific page URL that is entered. Each page of a site can perform differently, so make sure to check all pages of your site, or at least those that are most concerning.
A site that loads quickly and runs smoothly will help increase conversions and keep customers coming back. Don’t get lapped by the competition!