Why Website Speed and Page Load Time Matters

How long do you wait for a website to load? For many people, if a website takes over five seconds for a page to load, you’ve already lost them. If you really think about it, website speed is the first impression you make on a visitor- and first impressions are vital on the Internet.

Many companies pay huge amounts of money for online ads just to get people to visit their site in the first place, and a fast page load time is what keeps them there. Speed significantly enhances the user experience- so much in fact that many websites have been created with the sole purpose of helping people check their site speed. A few great websites that can help with this are tools.pingdom.com, webpagetest.org, and gtmetrix.com.

When it comes to well-known and trusted websites like Google or Facebook, people are willing to wait a little bit longer for it to load. Unfortunately, most websites are not Google or Facebook, which means that luxury isn’t always there. People expect speed, and a positive user experience (UX) is one of the few ways that a website can set themselves ahead of their competition. Positive UX design involves two major components: giving visitors what they’re looking for, and giving it to them quickly. If at any point of this process the website visitor gets lost or frustrated, this will also cause them to leave the site. Keeping a visitor on a website is like walking on eggshells; however, if it is done successfully, it can be extremely rewarding.

Another reason why it is important to have a fast website is because slow load times kill conversions. It’s as simple as this: if slow load speeds are driving visitors away, then it drives sales away. In addition, in the long run, that slow loading time will gradually stunt the website’s natural growth and reduces the site’s probability of getting new visitors from word-of-mouth.

Website speed and page load time also affects a website’s Google ranking. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and being at the top of Google’s search results is extremely important for visitor traffic, and Google has a self-confessed love for speed. According to them, “Google will reduce the amount of crawlers it sends to your site if your server is slower than two seconds”. “Crawlers” are used by search engines to index the context of websites across the entire Internet so that these websites can appear in search engine results. In conclusion, the faster a website is, the better the user’s experience is on the site, and Google loves websites that give a positive UX.