It’s human nature to get frustrated when a website doesn’t load quickly, so it’s not unlikely that folks will leave a site instead of waiting. Page speed is more important than ever—not just for those visiting a website but also for search engine rankings since user experience is a key ranking factor. Learn with ZAG why page speed is such a big factor and what action steps you can take to improve your site’s performance.
Why Does Page Speed Matter?
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User Experience (UX)
Visitors to your website expect to see content load quickly. A good load time is measured as a load time of under 2.5 seconds since that will help with a page’s Google PageSpeed score. As page load times go up from one to three seconds, the bounce rate increases by 32%. And once you have hit the five second mark, the bounce rate rises dramatically to 90%. Slow websites simply frustrate users, leading to missed bounce rate and conversion opportunities.
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SEO and Rankings
Page speed is an important ranking factor in Google's algorithm. Google considers a fast-loading site as a positive user experience. Slow-loading websites are penalized in rankings, which directly impacts visibility and organic traffic. How does Google know? Google checks up on this through historical Chrome User Experience Reports and real-time tool checks.
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Conversion Rates
Slow sites can negatively impact your conversions and therefore ROI. Conversions for sites include submitting a form, clicking to a third-party site for a conversion, and more. According to Fleexy, a one second delay in load times can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. If the delay hits three seconds, it becomes a 20% reduction. It is clear that page speed can significantly impact conversions, so improving your site's speed can significantly improve your UX and ultimately result in more revenue.
How to Improve Page Speed
Here are practical steps you can implement to boost your website's loading times:
1. Compress and Optimize Images
Images with larger file sizes slow down page load times, because the visitors browser must download more data. Optimize images by compressing them without sacrificing quality, using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim. Your CMS may also offer this feature. Also, consider other image formats. Formats like WebP offer smaller file sizes but still maintain the same quality. Other strategies, such as specifying image dimensions and using responsive images can help to improve speed.
2. Minify CSS and JavaScript Files
Minifying your CSS and JavaScript files is the process of making your code files smaller, without changing their function. Getting rid of unnecessary characters, unused code, and formatting will help minify your file. Also using shorter variable and function names will help to decrease file sizes and in turn, improve load speeds. Tools like Google's Closure Compiler or Minify help automate this task.
3. Use Browser Caching
Browser caching allows returning visitors to load your pages faster because their browser stores certain files from their first visit. That first initial visit will not be any faster, but returning visitors will see the benefit.
4. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Content delivery networks (CDNs) are a group of servers scattered throughout the world that deliver content to the users closest to them to speed up your site. To use a CDN, you’ll have to start by choosing the right provider. Making this choice depends on factors like budget, user location, and security requirements so it is important to do some research. You should work closely with your web development team or partner on this. ZAG uses Cloudflare for this.
5. Use Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is the method of waiting to load certain parts of a webpage, especially images and videos, until they are needed. Instead of loading all files at once, a browser will not request those resources until the user interacts with the page in a way where it’s seen that they’re needed. If this technique is used properly, it can increase page speed. Note that this would only apply to specific types of layouts or pages.
6. Upgrade Your Hosting
The quality of your website hosting can dramatically affect how quickly your site loads and how rises in traffic are handled. Cheaper hosting plans might save you money, but can cost you in the long run. Investing in quality hosting can have a positively strong impact on your website's speed and reliability.
7. Monitor Your Site's Performance
You should regularly check your page speed using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights. When entering your website link into this tool, you will receive a thorough evaluation of all the factors affecting your speed. Making this a regular practice will help you identify issues early and take the necessary action steps to resolve them.
8. Implement Google's Core Web Vitals Recommendations
Google’s Core Web Vitals are benchmarks for assessing a user’s experience when interacting with a website. These consist of three metrics:
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Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures perceived load speed, as it marks the point in the page load timeline when the page's primary content has likely loaded. A fast LCP helps to put users at ease, letting them know that the page is useful.
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Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Assesses a page's overall responsiveness to user interactions by identifying the latency of click, tap, and keyboard feedback that occurs throughout the lifespan of someone’s visit to a page.
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Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): A measure of the largest burst of layout shift scores for every surprise layout shift that happens during the whole lifecycle of a page.
Complying with these metrics can provide a better UX and improve your website's SEO.
Invest in Improving Your Site’s Speed
Improving page speed is not only beneficial, it’s really essential for any site that is looking to be competitive. Faster-loading websites keep users engaged and reduce bounce rates, improve search rankings, and increase conversions, while ultimately supporting long-term online success. Regularly auditing and making optimizations to your site will lead to exceptional experiences for visitors and stand out in search results. Are you thinking about making improvements to your website? Contact ZAG so we can help you work towards the results you’re looking for.