How does website load speed affect traffic conversion? | Websalutem.com

Site loading speed

January 5, 2022

The daily user runs into an ocean of advertising and visits dozens if not hundreds sites. To make a website to be a good seller, it is not enough to worry about quality content – it is necessary that the user has the opportunity to receive it as quickly as possible.

Let’s imagine a typical situation: a person is interested in an advertisement, and he clicks on the ad. Next, a new browser window opens, and the main page of the site is loaded in it. Three seconds pass, five, seven … As a rule, the visitor waits on average no more than 10 seconds, after which he closes the browser window and returns to the search results. It turns out, despite the fact that he was initially interested in the offer, because of a poor-quality site, he goes to competitors, and the company loses a potential client. Therefore, site loading speed is one of the most important factors for assessing the quality of traffic conversion: for selling sites – into a purchase, for information portals – into viewing content.

You have only three seconds to hold the user

Companies from various industries are conducting research on how exactly website page loading speed affects audience churn. So, according to the data, 40% of visitors leave the site if it takes more than three seconds to load. And one of the largest retailers in the world Walmart found that the store’s website has only 0.25 seconds to keep a visitor or he will go to a competitor’s website.

According to research by Amazon which is Walmart’s main competitor, a one-second slowdown in website page loading results is a 1% loss in conversions, this is the equivalent of losing $ 1.6 billion in annual revenue.

Mobile traffic vs desktop

In July 2018, Speed Update was launched in Google search. This means that the search algorithm has begun to separate mobile and desktop traffic, and the site load speed factor will be taken into account in the search results. Site content and relevance still is the most important ranking criterion for Google, but the weight of the loading speed increases. Therefore, it will now be especially important to test the loading and display of all sections and graphic elements.

Main factors which slowdown site loading speed

Based on our experience of observing sites, we can identify several main factors that directly affect site loading speed:

Abundance of graphic elements
Elements such as various image sliders, tile blocks slow down loading speed and sometimes may not display correctly. It is important to minimize the use of graphics so as not to distract the visitor from the site’s content and information about the residential complex.

Heavy images
It is important to use images with the minimum size and modern format like webp, so that the loading of photos on the click of a visitor does not affect the operation of the pages.

Database communication
Sometimes a site, in order to display one page, requests a large amount of data in the database, which is not always advisable. It is better to split the data loading into several parts or not request unnecessary information, thereby making communication with the database lighter.

Site structure
When creating or optimizing a website, it is important to evaluate how relevant the sections of the menu are. Combining several sections will not only reduce loading time, but also make site navigation more convenient.

Conclusion

Please take care of your site’s loading speed. But be absolutely sure – our team is ready to help you increase the speed of your site, if necessary.