Websites Taking Too Long to Respond May Be Ruining Your Conversions
We’ve all been there before. We’re trying to find a solution to a problem. We Google our search query and hit one of the links that looks extremely promising. And then, we wait. The little buffering dial pops up. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.
And still, nothing has loaded.
Frustrated, we close out the tab and head on to see if the next link will give us the solution that we are looking for.
This scenario shows just how common it is for websites taking too long to respond to miss out on potential conversions. I, a would-be customer, was interested in the content that the company had to offer. But because they couldn’t deliver it to me in a timely fashion, I just went back and checked out one of the many other competitors in the space.
Optimize Your Website for Speed
Research has shown once and for all that page load speed has a significant negative impact on conversions. For instance, 79% of users that would go through a slow website experience say that that slow experience would negatively impact their desire to buy from that company.
Another statistic says that almost two-thirds of mobile users expect your website to load within four seconds, or they’re going to go looking elsewhere. Sheesh. If you want to attract and keep website traffic, then you have to optimize your speed not only for desktop users but also for mobile traffic.
How to Optimize Speed
Now that you know why you need to optimize your website’s page load speeds, your next question is probably how you can do exactly that. Thankfully, there are a number of simple ways that you can optimize your page load speeds fairly quickly.
The first option is to move to a faster web host. A higher-end web hosting provider will dedicate more server space to your website, allowing for faster page load times.
Another option is to use a caching tool. This will allow users to store versions of your webpage on their device so that they aren’t fetching content every time.
The fastest website in your industry also probably uses a CDN. A CDN, or content delivery network, is a location-based system of servers. It makes copies of your website and hosts them on these different servers. Then, it connects visitors to your website to the geographically-closest server that has a current copy of your website. This can significantly cut down on page load times.
Last but not least, considering cutting down on the amount of data on your website. Use a lighter design and optimize image and video file sizes before uploading them to your website. All of these decisions will help you reduce your load times.
Websites Taking Too Long to Respond Are Turning Away Customers
The simple truth is that websites taking too long to respond are turning away customers. To stop doing the same at your company, make sure to implement the above recommendations on your website content!
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