In case you haven’t heard, these days more people search the Internet with a mobile device than a desktop.
This was confirmed in a study conducted by Similar Web in 2017, which found that, of 77 billion website visits, mobile accounted for over 50% of the traffic.
What does this mean for organizations like yours?
It means if your current website wasn’t created with a mobile-first approach, it’s time to refresh it. One of the biggest reasons why is page speed load time.
What is page speed load time?
Page speed load time is the amount of time it takes for a web page to download from the website’s host server and display on your browser. In other words it’s the time from when you click on a link to when the entire content of the website page displays.
What’s considered a good page speed load time?
Not too long ago, 7 seconds was viewed as an acceptable standard for page speed load time. 7 seconds is considered a snail’s pace now, especially with the rapid adoption of mobile, worldwide.
Fortune 100 companies average 5 seconds in page speed load times for their mobile websites. It’s better than 7 seconds but for mobile users, it still doesn’t cut it.
Why? Because mobile Internet users have a shorter attention span than desktop Internet users. How much shorter? Around 2 seconds.
So can a page speed load time of 5 seconds vs. 2 seconds really have an impact on your business?
The answer is a resounding “Yes”.
Page Speed's Impact on Conversion Rates - Why your load time could be costing you money
Recently Foresters did a study on the online shopping expectations of consumers. The research found that 50% of online shoppers will abandon a website whose pages fail to load within 3 seconds.
To add salt to the wound, 79% of those dissatisfied visitors said that they would almost never return to a slow website.
Lack of speed can really impact the bottom line.
According to the Aberdeen Group, for every second of delay in page speed load time after the mobile user’s expected page speed load time of 2 seconds, conversion rates go down by 7%. Many in the industry refer to this as “The Gap of Death”. It’s easy to understand why.
Based on the reality of The Gap of Death, it’s no wonder that the 16 most successful multichannel retailers have mobile websites that boast an eye-popping page speed load time of 1 second.
User Experience methods are essential to page speed performance and is in the opinion of most industry pundits, what determines how well a website converts. There are several site features that, when implemented, can help accomplish this goal.
Re-tooling your website to ensure it delivers a fast page load time in the 2-3 second range will enable your organization to score points with visitors for convenience and efficiency and will contribute greatly to a better user experience and SEO friendly for your brand.
Increased page speed load time = increased conversions
As discussed above, optimizing your website’s page speed load time is great for business.
When Walmart optimized their website’s page speed load time, they scored a 2% increase in conversion rates for every 1 second improvement in page speed load times.
In the political arena, Barack Obama raised an additional $34 million dollars (a 14% increase) for his campaign after his Obama for America website reduced its page speed load time from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.
Architech lowers client’s page speed load time by 54%
Here at Architech, we have assisted many of our clients with reducing their page speed load times.
Recently our page speed optimization experts executed a number of improvements to the client's website. They were:
- reduced the number of fonts loaded
- compress images to WebP format
- reduced the size of the global stylesheet
Combined, these refinements have enabled an organization to reduce the page speed load time of their home page by 54% on 3G networks and 44% on 4G networks.
Other ways a fast page speed load time is good for business and customer experience
An increase in conversions isn’t the only positive outcome that results from having a website with a fast page speed load time. Other benefits include:
- Lower bounce rate
- Increase in page views
- Converting and retaining more customers
- Customers will revisit your website
- Boost customer retention
- Customers will refer your website to others
- Reinforces your brand experience as an industry leader
Google likes page speed optimization too
Businesses aren’t the only ones that have recognized the importance of turbo-charged page speed load times.
Google has done so as well, confirming in July 2018 that page speed load time will be a ranking factor for mobile searches from now on.
Combine a faster page loading time with rich, relevant content, and you have the perfect recipe for increasing your ranking on Google and other search engines which in turn will translate into more visitors and the potential for more conversions.
Is your current website too slow? Are you concerned page speed load time could be affecting your website’s Google ranking? Contact Architech today and have our page speed optimization experts conduct an assessment.
