Is your Website speed killing its function? Tips, Tricks and Examples that will help bring life into the conversion rate of your website

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Is your slow website speed killing its conversion rate? Can your website speed have an effect upon your sales and profits? And what can you do to bring it back to life?

 

Every second counts:

 

Studies show that loading time is a major contributing factor to page abandonment. Not only do 47% web users expect the loading time of a website to be under 2 seconds, but 40% of web users abandon a web page if the loading time exceeds 4 seconds (Moth 2012). More surprisingly an astounding 79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with the performance of a website are less likely to buy from the same website again (Akamai 2009).

 

Why performance matters:

 

Individuals prefer to navigate themselves around the structure of a website with ease. The structure of a website is primarily the arrangement of links between the various pages and nodes, that a user must use to navigate themselves to reach their desired location (Galletta 2006). Essentially, users are faced with a decision on each page of the site, and at each point they evaluate the probability of any delay in getting to their desired location. Demonstrated through previous studies, Johnson and Payne (1985) notes that visitors of websites develop strategies to limit their cognitive thinking processes in attempting to seek “low cost” strategies. Whether a conscious or unconscious decision, sites that offer lower cost options- lower total loading time and effort- will in return be preferred over sites with a higher cost (Galletta 2006). Prior research confirms that long delays lead to frustration (Doherty and Kelisky 1979), dissatisfaction (Lee and MacGregor 1985) and giving up (Nah 2002). Negative impacts are strongest when delays are longer than expected (Galletta 2006).

 

 

Website speed for your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation):

 

Even if effecting user experience isn’t bad enough, slow website speed can also cause your site to be penalized by Google’s search engine results (Moth 2012). For starters, Google thinks that website speed is a vital factor to any site. It may even be considered that they have a slight obsession over it. This is not breaking news. In 2012, Moth found that since 2011 Google had incorporated site speed into its ranking factor. Although it was stated by Google that it would impact fewer than 1% of queries and that website owners should still be concerned with the quality of their site rather than the performance; page speed remains as a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, so the faster your site the higher the ranking (Costill 2014). So, although it is one of the factors, it certainty is not one that should be ignored.

 

“Slow Kills: 5 ways to speed up Your Website”

 

What causes your website to load slowly?

 

  1. Unoptimised Images

Impacting 90% of the Alexa Top 1000, unoptimised images are those, which can be reduced in size without any visual impact to your user. These are usually PNG and JPEG images that either have extra data included in them for comments, or because they contain an inefficient deflate compressor (Costill 2014).

 

How can you fix this?

  • Due to the extra data in them, PNG files are unnecessarily large. Such images can be reduced in size using tools such as tinyPNG (https://tinypng.com) that aids to reduce the size of the file without changing or reducing the quality of the image.
  • Alike PGN files, JPEG files are also needlessly big. Once again by using tools such as JPEGmini (http://www.jpegmini.com), you can reduce the size of the image without compromising the image quality.
  • Remember, in order to gain maximum image optimisation use your images correctly! PNG files are best when used for logos and icons, whereas, JPEG files are more preferable for photos. By ultilising your images correctly you can often with no hassle reduce file savings as large as 80% (Isham 2013).

 

  1. Unnecessary and Incompatible Plugins, Browsers and Apps

Plugins are often the best part of using website platforms such a WordPress, but often many websites have far more than needed. Take Flash for example: it is not compatible with most mobile devices and some website browsers (such as Google Chrome). If you know that your visitors are more likely to open your website on platforms such as Google Chrome or mobile devices, then consider removing Flash plugins. [If you want to find out what platforms your customers use the most, consider using Google Analytics]. At the end of the day you want your visitors to have the best possible experience, so always test your site on different browsers and devices (costil 2014).

 

How can you fix this?

  • Test your plugins on various browser platforms and mobile devices
  • Do not over use ‘plugins’. When together and unneeded all they do is slow the loading time of your website.
  • Check your plugins folder and see the plugins that you are actively using. The ones that you are not using you can deactivate and delete. Most of the time, even if your plug in is not in use, it can slow the loading time of your site

 

  1. The server is located far away from the visitors of the site

Is your website is popular? You have done all that you can to increase the website speed; however it still has a slow loading time? Simply optimizing images and removing plugins is not enough. Where your server is in relation to its visitors can have a big impact upon the performance of your website, notes echosurge.

 

How can you fix this?

  • Implement a CDN

If you know that your site is popular in Scotland, and your server is located in London, a CDN will allow your content to be stored on a server in Scotland. CDN stand for Content Delivery Network Closer access to a server geographically means that when the visitors in Scotland open the site, the content will load faster and sooner as it the server will be geographically closer to them.

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Image Source: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/top-cdn-services-to-make-your-wordpress-site-blazingly-fast/

 

  • Consider using MaxCDN to implement a CDN onto your server. It is recognised as one of the most well-known and popular CDN that powers the likes of the Next Web (Wilson, 2014).

 

  1. Slow Hosting Provider

Have you done all the steps above and your website is still slow? You may want to consider changing your website provider. Most free providers may place you on a sharing server, notes echosurge. If your website is not hugely popular, or if you don’t have much traffic this may in actual fact not be a big problem. However, if you are aware that your website is popular and you have a substantial amount of traffic per day, then consider using a hosting provider that places you on your own server.

 

Here are a few tools you can consider using to test and increase your website speed:

 

As you can see, website speed is a important factor for any website, whether large or small. The faster the loading time of your website, the happier your customers and the better your profits.

 

How has your website features affected your website? Once you have improved its flaws, have your customers been happier? Have your sales increased? Like, Share and Comment below with your thoughts!

 

References:

 

Costill. A, (2014), SEO 101: How Important is Site Speed in 2014, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101-important-site-speed-2014/111924/

 

Echosurge, Slow Kills: 5 Ways to Speed up your WordPress Website, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, http://echosurgemarketing.com/slow-kills-5-ways-to-speed-up-your-wordpress-website/

 

Galletta. D, Henry. R, McCoy. S, Polak. P, (2006), When the Wait Isn’t So Bad: The Interacting Effects of Website Delay, Familiarity, and Breadth, Information Systems Research, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, http://butlercommonplace.org/pbiswiki/images/0/0c/Galletta_et_al_(2006_-_ISR)_Website_Delay,_Familiarity,_and_Breadth.pdf

 

Isham. M, (2013), 5 Common Causes of Slow Website Performance, Retrieved April 24, 2015, http://zoompf.com/blog/2013/04/top-5-causes

 

Kissmetrics, (2015), How loading time affects your bottom line, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, https://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/

 

Kissmetrics, (2015), Speed is a killer- why decreasing page load time can drastically increase conversions, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, https://blog.kissmetrics.com/speed-is-a-killer/

 

Moth. D, (2012), Site Speed: case studies, tips and tools for improving the conversion rate, Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, https://econsultancy.com/blog/10936-site-speed-case-studies-tips-and-tools-for-improving-your-conversion-rate/

 

Wilson. R, (2014), Top CDN Services to make your WordPress site Blazingly Fast (and More Reliable), Retrieved April 24, 2015, from, http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/top-cdn-services-to-make-your-wordpress-site-blazingly-fast/

 

 

 

 

 

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