The Need for Speed: Why Optimised Loading Speed is Important for Online Success We all know the Tortoise and the Hare parable. We are taught from a young age that slow and steady wins the race. Well, let us be the ones to say that when it comes to your website loading speed, slow and steady loses every time. Why is that? We are in 2018; we feed on efficiency; we are impatient; we have one-hundred-and-one other things to do. The World Wide Web is like a gladiators’ amphitheatre, where only the fastest, smartest and strongest websites survive. Wow, things just got exciting. As a web design agency based in Manchester, we create websites that can compete and win in the battle to page one of the search engine results pages (SERPs), and some of that online success is attributed to speed. Here we take a look at why that optimised loading speed is so crucial.
Web Design for a Digital World
‘I Feel the Need…the Need for Speed’, says Maverick in Top Gun. First Gladiators, now this – what a day! Let’s pretend that rather than fighter jets Maverick was in fact talking about websites. Living in a digital world with constant advancements in technology, we don’t only want immediate satisfaction from a fully loaded website, we expect it.
Web designers know all about the significance of a positive user experience. Part of that positive UX comes down to the optimisation of loading speeds. Users don’t have the time to wait. If your website loading speed is too slow, users will abandon your website before getting a look in at the super exciting content (we hope) that you have. Slow loading speeds send traffic to competitors.
SEO, Of Course
Your users aren’t the only ones to dislike a slow website. Google doesn’t like it either so your position in the SERPs will also take a hit. It is well documented that the “sweet spot” for loading speed sits at 2 seconds. This means that when Google produces its search engine results pages, those websites with a loading speed of 2 seconds or less will find themselves closer to the top spot. Google has very kindly produced the tool PageSpeed Insights, which you can use to check the performance of your website.
Conversion Rate Optimisation for Ecommerce
As a web design agency, we are very much up to speed with the best practices for conversion rate optimisation. For those who are new to this term, conversion rates are calculated as the percentage of your website visitors who become consumers. Page speed optimisation is arguably most essential in Ecommerce and is especially important when your users click on that ‘checkout’ button. Aptly referred to as the conversion killer, the checkout page is often the make or break point of the user journey – that is the ease with which your user accesses your website, finds what they want and invests in your products (as in Ecommerce) or services.
The huge pull for Ecommerce is its easy breezy experience – when done well. There is no battle for a parking space, no traipsing children with you around shops or trying to dart your way through the slow walkers. It is a simple search, browse and click. When a website visitor is ready to invest their hard earned cash in your business, a slow checkout loading speed, particularly for mobile users, can mean the difference between sale and fail.
There are a plethora of web design practices which can optimise your page loading speed. If slow loading speeds are stopping your online success, get in touch with the team at Christian Michaels for a free audit and consultation.
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