![\"expected](\"https:\/\/thegood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/expected-page-load-time.jpg\")
This means that site speed matters. It matters to the user experience, it matters to your SEO outcomes, and it matters to your conversion rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, we\u2019ll point you towards tactics that can help you improve your site speed and keep more of your hard-earned traffic. After all, a small tweak in website performance could boost your ecommerce revenue and deliver a favorable return on investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is Site Speed?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Site speed refers to the length of time it takes for your web pages to load. It\u2019s measured in seconds or fractions of seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When a user clicks on a page, their browser sends a bunch of HTTP requests to the website\u2019s host server. The browser asks for text, image files, scripts, and other elements. The server has to respond to each request by providing the appropriate element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gap between the initial request sent and you being able to view that information is the load time. It\u2019s not a terribly complicated concept, but the protocols and delivery systems can get complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means that site speed is affected by lots of variables: the type and amount of content, connection type, device type, operating system, browser, and even the distance between the user and the host server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we talk about site speed, we\u2019re almost always referring to speed from the user\u2019s perspective. <\/em>The user wants a functional page. They generally don\u2019t care about what\u2019s going on in the background as long as they can interact with the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can improve a website load speed by 1) reducing the number of elements to be loaded, 2) making the individual elements load faster, and 3) reorganizing the order elements load so the things users care about appear first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your website speed is key to the performance of your ecommerce store and your growth as a brand. In an age where users expect high performance, you can\u2019t afford to be the slow store that frustrates users. Let\u2019s talk about why site speed matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your site speed might be the first impression your brand makes. Visitors will make assumptions about your business based on your site\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your site loads slowly, there\u2019s a good chance visitors will see you as unsafe, ill-prepared, and untrustworthy. In fact, 79% of online shoppers<\/a> say they won\u2019t go back to a website if they aren\u2019t happy with its loading speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if your site loads quickly, visitors will see you as a reliable and professional operation that takes their time and the potential transaction seriously. It\u2019s the kind of thing that instills trust and confidence early in the relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slow websites actually sell fewer products!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an Unbounce survey<\/a>, nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed influences their likelihood to buy. They either don\u2019t want to wait for the page to load, or they associate slow loading with untrustworthiness. You don\u2019t want to fall into either category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How fast do you need to be to convert? According to a study by Portent<\/a>, a 0-4 second loading time is a good target, but the highest ecommerce conversion rates occur on pages that load in under two seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, each additional second of delay reduces conversion rates by 2.11%. A store that loads in one second has a conversion rate 2.5x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your bounce rate<\/a> is a key web performance metric. It refers to the percentage of visitors who visit your site and leave after only viewing one page. This metric is influenced by many different factors, such as your design, layout, relevancy to their search, and your site speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naturally, visitors who bounce off your site without viewing subsequent pages are highly unlikely to convert. Even if a shopper is primed to buy, they still need to visit multiple pages, such as the product detail page<\/a>, shopping cart, checkout, and thank you page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simply put, a page\u2019s load time directly impacts bounce rate. Visitors are more likely to bounce off sites that take longer to load. The Digital.com report we mentioned earlier suggests that countless ecommerce sites could get more visitors to stay, and not bounce from the site immediately, by making their sites load faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\u2019s research shows that the chance of a bounce increases by 32%<\/a> when a page load time went from one to three seconds, and increases by 90% when the page load time went from one to five seconds. If a site takes 10 seconds to load, nearly everyone leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Search engines live and die based on the user experience they deliver. Providing the highest quality results to searchers is how Google came to dominate the business. Since users don\u2019t like websites with slow-loading pages, search engines don\u2019t either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your site speed can cause your site to be penalized by the algorithm that determines which pages show where on the search engine results page (SERP). In 2010, Google stated that its search algorithm would start taking speed into account<\/a> when ranking search results. In 2018, Google confirmed that speed is also a factor when ranking mobile sites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then in 2021, Google introduced the page experience update<\/a>. This update includes core web vitals, which are a group of loading speed-related metrics that impact the user experience. In a Google AMA<\/a>, Philip Walton, a Google engineer who works on web performance, said that while core vitals aren\u2019t the end-all-be-all factor, Google takes them seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The chart below is typical of studies comparing search engine page rank position to click-through rates (CTR). Note how the top position gets the lion\u2019s share of attention, then CTR drops off sharply as page rank declines. Once you get beyond the first page of the SERP, your chances of drawing an organic click are slim indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no secret that we\u2019re impatient. We don\u2019t want to wait for the web. We want it right now. <\/em>The human attention span is only 8.25 seconds<\/a>, which is 4.25 seconds less than in the year 2000. So when something takes too long to load, it creates friction and disrupts the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your customers may be loyal, but at the end of the day, their real loyalty is to their own needs. If they feel that your site makes it difficult or impossible to get the products they want (due to slow website load speed), they will simply shop somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s look now at the fundamental factors involved in page load time and some best practices to improve your site speed. If you don\u2019t get these six things right, your site speed will suffer and you\u2019ll miss out on conversions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the factor most people think of when load time is discussed. Many website owners make the mistake of uploading images that are too large. Yes, you can scale them down to fit the space, but that means you\u2019re loading a larger file size than you need, which is just more data you\u2019re asking the server to transmit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quality of the image also affects its size. Does every<\/em> image on your site need<\/em> to be high resolution? Or would it look fine if you removed a few of those pixels? Compression can help you reduce the file size of your images to make your pages load quicker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each element your site needs to display a page has to be requested from the website\u2019s server. More requests mean \u201ctalking\u201d between server and browser. More talking means more loading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How many HTTP requests are too many? That\u2019s hard to answer because it also depends on the size of the requests and how long it takes the server to reply. Some requests are big, like videos and high-resolution photos, and some servers respond slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can check the number of HTTP requests your site makes using Chrome\u2019s Developer Tools. Visit a page you want to test, right-click anywhere and choose the \u201cInspect\u201d menu item. Refresh the page, visit the Network tab, and view the total number of requests at the bottom left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compression is the process of reducing the size of files without affecting their function or quality (too much). By compressing your site, you make each element smaller and quicker to retrieve. Ultimately, this creates a significant performance boost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compression is so important that almost all sites use it. According to W3Techs, 87.2% of websites use compression<\/a> to some degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The good news is that this process isn\u2019t that difficult to manage. Advances in compression technology have been a huge factor in allowing code-heavy websites to load in a reasonable time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your hosting provider or ecommerce platform probably enables compression by default, but the impact here is too great to assume. Check with either party to confirm.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy is Site Speed Important<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Reputation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Conversion rate<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Bounce rate<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Organic traffic and SEO (search)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
User experience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What Factors Affect Site Speed?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Image size<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. Number of HTTP requests<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"check](\"https:\/\/thegood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/check-requests.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n3. Compression<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"compression](\"https:\/\/thegood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/compression-stats-1024x675.jpg\")