This is a question that I often encounter in my work. How can website loading speed actually increase traffic to your site? How does this affect SERP and SEO? Do you have to have good performance and a fast website? We're way past the sounds of the 90s when you connected to your modem and your phone stopped working at the same time. That speed doesn't even compare to some of the slowest websites we work with today.
Let's break it down simply. When you look at a website's infrastructure, you start with details that no one sees, but everyone knows. Performance, that is, the optimization of the page starting with how it opens up to the user.
SERP and SEO
The first stands for Search Engine Results Page and is in the name. This is where the results pop up on the search engines. If you want to be visible there, speed has a direct impact on results. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor to give its searchers the best user experience, and all users want a fast website. It's a two-way street. Google gives and takes in the same way that businesses need to focus on providing the same experience to their website visitors. In exchange, you get more searches for your business. It creates a good reputation for you and Google at the same time.
Conversion
Approximately 50% of users in today's society expect a website to perform well and be fully loaded within 2 seconds. In those two seconds, you have already made a first impression and it is said that around 80% of us don't bother to revisit a site that hasn't worked optimally the first time.
Interface for the user
We're talking about building loyalty by ensuring that the site's functions actually work as they should. An optimized site leads directly to better usability, which in turn builds the brand. Creating responsive websites has become popular and you can't get away from this. Companies that call me ask the same thing. The important part is to use software and code that work together to not let the responsive part compromise the performance and usability for your visitors.
The different speedometers and how they work.
At Websupporten.no, we use two fixed "gauges" in particular when we enter the analysis phase of an optimization assignment: GTmetrix.com and PageSpeed Insights, which are very good free tools you can use to obtain detailed information about how a website performs and whether it is a fast website.
GTmetrix, it's free but with the option to subscribe to larger plans with page monitoring and more options to measure performance. Here you review the load time, the total page size and the total number of HTTP requests. You are rated with a grade where A is the best.
PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is completely free and is Google's performance measurement tool. Very simple, you enter your URL and the result will appear shortly afterwards. Here you first get a result for speed on mobile, and then you can choose to see the result for desktop. PSI uses numbers from 1 to 100, with the latter being the best.
Classification: Good, Needs improvement, Poor
PSI also classifies field data into 3 categories that describe experiences that are considered good, need improvement or are poor. PSI sets the following thresholds for good/improvement/poor, based on an analysis of the CrUX dataset:
Chrome User Experience Report
CrUX stands for Chrome User Experience Report and shows detailed results based on a user's experience. Data from this comes from the many millions of Chrome users each month, and it is used to see how fast a page loads, and last but not least, how you rank via Ads and on search engines. Poor performance obviously affects such results.
When you divide a page as described above, SERP/SEO, Conversion and User Interface, you already have the template for how a page should be. Firstly, every page should be built like this from the start. But the reality today really isn't like that. More often than not, someone throws together a page to start work as quickly as possible, not thinking about the consequences of an unfinished page. An unfinished site often means that the end result is not a fast website.
What makes poor performance versus a fast website?
You give a bad impression to Google, Bing, Yahoo and the users and once you have made such an impression, well then it can take some time to turn that opinion around. Just like in life itself. It's actually as simple as thinking that you're preparing a party and serving sausage in bread, but you choose to serve the sausage bread first as an appetizer and sausage with ketchup as the main course. It's the same with websites, put together a good dinner from the start and you'll be welcomed with open arms. Every website in today's society that falls below 50 on the PSI scale can quickly lose customers and the chance to climb the Google rankings fades away.
Why businesses need to start looking in the mirror and realize that loading speed can mean win or lose.
According to some estimates, as much as $500 billion dollars is lost every year in lost revenue due to website loading speeds. Businesses need to wake up and realize that 2020 is here and all online traffic is going up, all commerce is increasing and demand is increasing at the same time. Performance is a requirement. If you fall behind as a business in the midst of all this, you'll lose your piece of the pie - and as it stands now, that piece can be quite large.
Even a one-second improvement on a website can make a huge difference to the user's experience. A bump in the road that can be smoothed out shouldn't be put off. Check your site today and come up with a strategy for how you and your company will optimize your site and, in other words, get further up in terms of search and experience. Of course, I highly recommend getting in touch with me or Websupporten so that we can create a battle plan for you.
How do we work?
As mentioned earlier, it all starts with a search where we check how a website ranks in terms of performance, load time and interface. We check if it's a fast website. Then we go in to see which parts of the page are causing it to hang or load slowly. Then, of course, it matters what software everything is built with and what the layout looks like from the back end.
We work on several different projects where some can have an intense change of coding and some almost only need a CDN and compression of images, then everything is fine. The difference is huge, but has the same effect. As we offer performance improvement on all platforms, the range of what you can encounter is huge.
Our optimization services include
- WordPress optimization
- Expert HTML and CSS performance
- File changes
- Gzip implementation
- script changer
- Code and image compression
- Responsive performance enhancement
What is CDN and how does it work?
It stands for Content Distribution Network and is therefore servers. They are distributed globally to store the files from a website so that they can be uploaded faster. The idea is that these dispersed servers can be closer to the end user and thus save loading time, which in turn increases the speed of the website. CDN functions as an online ecosystem and began its existence in the 1990s, but has of course grown in size among "ordinary" people over time and is now in great demand.
Back to the title and conclusion: Does a fast website create higher growth?
Definitely. The conclusion is simple. In today's society, businesses cannot afford to drop their focus on loading speed. It goes directly against how search engine algorithms are designed and how you rank as a website or online store. No matter how you slice it, everyone benefits when their website loads faster.
Avoid taking cheap solutions instead to ensure future visits and sales. I see it all the time, websites that are sold and created as quickly as possible without a second thought about how they perform on search engines. It's damaging your business before you've even started. If there's one thing you should spend money on, it's your front end. This is where your customers find you, see you, read your words and awaken their inner thoughts about what they think of your company. It's the first impression, as mentioned, and this is where you need to win them over. When you're not there as a sales person, it's your site that literally works for you 24/7.
If your site can't be found, or offer users a good and user-friendly visit, then you've already lost that opportunity.
You have a responsibility.
As a company, you have a responsibility. As a developer, you have an even greater responsibility. In terms of the traces you leave behind when you have built a website. Sloppy and messy, or do it right, carefully and get paid afterwards. Create a quick website right away, test and test until you get it right.
When we build websites in WordPress, we make them optimized from the ground up, because we know the importance of being ready from the start. If you've found a provider that can't do this, I'd recommend you choose the right one. Choose the future. Choose success!
Good luck on the road!
