The time taken for a website to load is shorter than you think. Data shows that on average, it takes less than 2 seconds for most of the websites to load!
Websites with long loading times can significantly impact your traffic. Loading time plays a significant difference in your website. But why is the website speed so important and what difference a fraction of a second may make on your site?
1. Website speed is your first impression
Your site must have a good first impression. The reader/customer coming to your website makes an instant judgment about the site and the associated business based on its speed. A website that loads fast guarantees a strong first impression.
Fast websites are automatically considered to be reliable and professional. For the viewers, speed is directly related to confidence, trust and efficiency. According to a survey, websites having good loading speeds in Ireland automatically gained more traffic as compared to their slow-loading competitors.
2. Visitors expect speed!
With access to fast internet everywhere, the users need the information fast. When the users are on the move, they tend to be less patient and need all their answers now! A website loading longer even by some seconds is good enough to put off quite a lot of users.
According to Aidan Spence, one of the leading Donegal Web Design consultants, no matter how good a web site is visually, the website must be optimized for speed.
In an era, where we are on the internet expecting quick results, let it be on desktop, laptop, phone or tablet, a slow loading website is guaranteed to put visitors off.
3. Lower the speed, lower the conversions
If a website having 10,000 visits every month if slowed by 4 seconds could lose 4,000 potential customers. Lower conversions will have a direct effect on sales. Imagine this happening to Amazon. Tests conducted by Amazon showed that if their website is slowed by even a single second, they would end up losing $1.6 billion each year!
It is also worth noting that the above is being said about an established, highly recognizable company. If customers are not willing to wait an extra second on giants like Amazon, what chance have budding businesses got?
4. User experience is the key
Having designed websites for several clients in Ireland and beyond, I think the UX design and user experience are some of the ways that sets a website apart from its competitors.
The user experience for the website visitors are based on two primary factors;
• Provide the visitors what they are looking for
And;
• Provide it fast!
That is why the speed of your website is crucial when it comes to user experience. People visiting your website for something when not getting it fast becomes frustrated. This completely spoils the user experience and loses visitors.
5. Your Google rank suffers
Google is on a mission to make the whole web faster. They strive to make sure that the internet is easily assessable, super speedy and useful. When ranking different websites, Google considers the loading speeds significantly. Many other factors account for better ranking on google, and load speed is one of the important ones.
Statements from Google suggests that the number of crawlers sent by Google to your site is significantly lowered if the server is slower than two seconds. This means that on a loading website, Google is less likely to pick up the latest updates on your website. Several Donegal Web Design services including Aidan Spence ensures that your website is regularly crawled, and the loading times are minimal are lesser.
6. The long-term effect of slow loading speed
So far, we have established that slow loading speed has a direct impact on the number of visitors. Slower the speeds, lower the number of visitors. Nearly half of the potential customers are lost when the speed of your site is slow. The long loading times eventually stunts your natural growth and word-of-mouth audience reach.
Due to poor experience, customers stop referring your services to others. Slow websites are also at times linked to a lack of credibility. This may also hurt the business in the long run.
Speed matters. That is why it is important to have your Irish websites designed using renowned web design services in Ireland. The loading times of your website directly affects your sales and conversions, search rankings, user experience and more!
Aidan Spence is renowned all over Ireland as one of the leading web design consultants to help you achieve your online potential. The websites designed by him are guaranteed to have shorter loading times and a promising increase in daily traffic.
