Let’s make this quick and simple because users don’t want to wait.
Everything is instant now; everything has a short cut. In this age where express deliveries and same-day results are very popular to customers, it’s no surprise that online users and searchers are not a big fan of waiting. Patience, no matter how important it is as a virtue, is not something that many modern consumers possess. And if your business is eyeing potential consumers through SEO and SEM strategies, make sure that you’re not neglecting the speed quality of your website.
Clickthrough Rate (CTR), overall impression, and lead generation are sure to be one of the most essential points in your site’s analytics, but there’s one more thing that you should also focus on – bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of your website visitors who navigate away from your site after only checking one page. If this happens, it only means two things: your site is boring or your site is taking a while to load. Remember the users’ patience?
A boring website is easy to fix. With the help of a web development expert in Singapore, you can have the opportunity to redesign your site and make it more interesting for users. Now, if you are dealing with the latter, there are more things that you need to tick on the list.
Understanding The Importance Of Site Speed
Have you tried to access your website? Are you aware of your page speed?
According to 47% of online users, your site should load within 2 to 5 seconds once they reach your page. More than just leading a potential customer away from your site, a second of delay can actually hurt your business.
What happens when your site loads more than 5 seconds?
- 11% fewer page views
- 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
- 7% loss in conversions
Considering these statistics, it only means one thing: website speed matters… a lot.
Now, going to back to our initial question: have you tried to access your site? And based on your own experience, would you want to make it load faster? Before you answer that, let us point out how increased website speed can affect your business.
Get higher sales and conversions. Imagine if 7% of users who clicked out of your website actually pushed through with the sale? That’s an increase of 7% on your revenue.
Increased positive customer experience. A large percentage of 16% is unhappy with the performance of your site. If your site loads faster, that’s 16% more positive customer experience.
Guaranteed page views and lower bounce rate. Think about what will happen if 11% of users who visited your website also checked out other pages: more page views, more impressions, more chance of positive advertising. And consequently, it can lower your site’s bounce rate.
Improve Your Site’s Speed In 4 Steps
Like any other strategies, you have to make sure to start on the basic. And when a website is slow, there are only a few factors to consider to make it perform better. Here are the 4 basic things to check on your list before digging deeper on your website’s structure and coding.
1. Image And Video Optimization Is important
Nothing makes a website more enticing and engaging than quality images. If you’re running a restaurant business, you’re sure to want to showcase your beautiful food plating and mouth-watering dishes. And if you are an insurance company, you may want to feature the happy faces and the successful lives of your satisfied clients. It’s understandable. Images are important.
However, high-quality images and videos drag your website’s speed to its lowest point. Imagine heavy package on one side of the swing while the other side has nothing on it. That’s how it works. The best solution is to make sure that your images are optimized. Make sure to scale the images appropriately to avoid delays.
2. Keep A Simple Website Design
Aside from the fact that a simple web design increases your user experience, it also helps with your page speed. People would want to access a website that is concise, straightforward, and easy to understand.
More than that, simple web design only needs a few HTTP requests for it to load. An HTTP request is composed of various elements contained in your websites such as JavaScript, CSS, and image files. If you have fewer elements on your site, it easier for you to communicate to the cloud, thus making it faster to load.
3. Caching Can Be Considered
Repeat visitors are inevitable, and it’s actually a good thing. When people search for new clothes to wear or a new restaurant to dine in or new flight schedules, it’s rare that they will decide right away. Most often than that, the first time they visit your site is part of their research process, like checking what else is in the market. Once they made up their mind, there is a high percentage that they will come back to your site to finish the transaction.
If you enable cache, repeat users will experience faster site loading which can add to their overall satisfaction. Caching works like a sort of a library or a rental shop. It saves elements of your website on the users’ hard drive in a cache or any temporary storage. This way, the page will be faster the next time they visit your site.
4. Accelerated Mobile Pages
Since the majority of online users, not just in Singapore but also worldwide, are searching through their phones, AMP helps the page load faster. By making an open-source format that removes a lot of unnecessary contents, AMP makes it easier for mobile users to load your website.
Conclusion
Developing your website most likely takes months of hard work, planning, and execution. Every element is sure to be well thought of – from the icons to the colours, the images, and up to the layout and usability. Do not let it go to waste just because a user cannot access your website completely. Your site’s speed is as important as any other elements you consider putting in it.
In a fast-paced society, people would not spend 15 seconds waiting for a website to load just to get the answer that they need especially when other sites can give it to them for less. If you want to increase your site’s performance and business’ sales, keep your website within Google’s standard on-site speed.
Do you need help revamping your website? Get in touch with a trusted digital agency in Singapore today and get a free consultation.
