From choosing the rights fonts to finding the perfect vocab for call-to-action banners, digital marketers fret over countless aspects when launching a new website for their brand. But oftentimes, they end up overlooking one critical detail: their site’s load speed.

While loading time may not seem like a critical error, it can significantly impact your search performance, conversion rates, and overall on-page user experience. Ahead, we’ve elaborated on the importance of page speed, along with some facts and figures.

Why You Need a Faster Website?

A fast site can increase your search ranking on Google and other search engines. In 2018, Google also introduced a "Speed Update" that made site loading time a critical ranking factor for mobile searches. According to Google survey research, up to 46 percent of consumers highly disliked browsing through slow-to-load websites on their mobile devices. 64 percent of mobile phone users expect a website to load in less than 4 seconds.

This strong dislike toward slow loading sites has two severe consequences:

First, it deters engagement and users’ willingness to take any action.

A 2013 study found that a 10 percent decrease in site loading speed led to a 13 percent reduction in pages viewed per session. Along similar lines, Walmart saw a 2 percent increase in conversion rates for every second of improvement in site speed.

The second problem with slow site speed is that it compels visitors to never return to your site again. And it’s not just our opinion – several leading businesses have experienced increased bounce rates due to slow sites. For instance:

• BBC found that with every second of delay in the loading time, 10 percent of users abandoned their site.
• GiveMeSport (GMS), a leading sports publisher with over 3.2 million unique visitors per month, increased its website traffic by up to 63 percent only by improving the site speed.
• Amazon, an e-commerce giant, calculated that user abandonment due to a site slowdown of only 1 second would reduce their sales revenues by $1.6 billion every year.

Your website’s bounce rate may be proportional to its load time. As per Google, a three-second extra delay in the site's loading time can increase the probability of user abandonment by 32 percent. Make it five seconds, and the risk of losing your visitor will increase to 90 percent. Make it a 10-second delay, and the risk increases by a whopping 123 percent!

How Quick Should Your Site Be?

Having seen the numbers, you may be convinced that site speed is a factor that you can't ignore if you want to succeed online. But the question remains: how quickly should your website be loading?

We’d say that there’s no one magic figure. Search engines and users have varying performance expectations for different website types, depending on the connection speed and content type. However, as a rule of thumb, you could use the findings by Unbounce to optimize your website speed. The findings reveal that 27 percent of users will wait for 1 to 3 seconds for a website to load on their mobile devices, 32 percent for 4 to 6 seconds, and only 24 percent will be willing to wait for more than 7 to 10 seconds.

If your slow-loading website is sabotaging your search engine rankings, conversion rates, bounce rates, website traffic, and revenues, it's time you connect with Internet Dominators to get your site speed optimized. Call us at 714-968-7697 to get started today!