The site loading speed is the time it takes for the page to load for the user with all the text, images, forms, advertising banners and other content.
But in terms of conversions and usability, it is only important how quickly the page loads in the form that the user needs immediately after logging in to the site. This may be only 30% of all content and functions. It is this part that needs to be accelerated first of all.
The speed of the site is important for the user. People don’t like to wait for a long time, and slow sites will receive more rejections and bring in fewer conversions.
When visiting any page on the Internet, ordinary people do not think about what work the browser does to turn styles, scripts and HTML into the final version. The information is important to the visitor. But nothing is more annoying than a slow Internet and a slow website speed.
1st reason – users like fast pages
Why is the site loading slowly?
Even on the 16 Mbit/s Internet, one second is enough to load 1-2 MB of a page. But this does not always work out. The delay that occurs between the transition to the page and its display depends on many factors:
- the speed of the site the
- number and size of resources the
- time of their download the
- performance of the computer and browser
In different situations, some of this starts to slow down more. For mobile traffic, this is most often the total size of the downloaded files and the suboptimal order of their download. And owners of computers and laptops are already waiting for a server and JS scripts.
How does the speed of the site affect visitors?
The importance of site speed has been studied by leading experts from Bing and Google. In their presentation, they noted the following negative trends:
- the user satisfaction decrease
- decrease in revenue per user
- decrease in the number of clicks
Ericsson conducted an interesting study: a 2-second delay in downloading videos from YouTube increases stress by 3%, and pauses during playback – by as much as 15%.
Mobile devices have more modest parameters than desktop computers, so it is important to optimize the work of pages for them as well.
2nd reason – this is important for SEO
Many people believe that search engine optimization is focused on selecting the right keywords and creating backlinks. However, there are other ranking factors that often go unnoticed, such as the speed of the site.
In 2014, Google began ranking by HTTPS, repeatedly reminding about this, which contributed to the mass purchase of SSL certificates. So, for the year (the period April 2017-April 2018), the number of certificates in Runet increased by 1.6 times. Now there is a tendency among seoshnikov to work on the speed of the site.
In Google Adwords notifications, there is warnings “Site pages on average take too long to respond to the robot”:
The benefits of search engines
Search engines are interested in ensuring that people who are looking for answers to their questions. They take “payment” from users through advertising.
You can get more money for advertising if people ask more questions to the search engine, they will be shown more diverse advertisements. Search engines will receive additional income if the visited pages open quickly and have time to download and show “their” ads (Yandex.Yandex. Direct and Google AdWords) before the user closes the site.
Imagine that a person from the search results goes to a page and starts waiting for it to load. The site barely turns around. The user clicks the “back” button and starts viewing the search results again. It’s even worse when he has mobile Internet or just a bad provider.
Under the guise of caring about visitors, the Dobra Corporation began to rank mobile search by speed, although this is correct.
The following scheme is built: a person wants to find answers to several questions, googles the first question, the site loads quickly, the person receives an answer, and begins to Google another question, simultaneously viewing (and clicking) advertising.
By the way, Google’s income also depends on its own speed:
In this indirect way, the average loading time of sites affects the income of search giants and affects the methods of search engine optimization.
Getting to the TOP
Of course, a bad, but fast site will not be a leader in the search. But if high-quality sites that are well SEO-optimized start competing, then there is only one criterion left – speed.
Behavioral factors are also improved due to the overall acceleration of the site, which is good for SEO.
3rd reason: sales growth
There is an opinion that if a person is going to buy a product, he will wait for a slow page to load completely, he is still set up to buy.
However, this is not the case: even minimal delays cause a decrease in sales at the level of fractions of percent. It is easier to recognize this on the sales of large sites, since each sale in itself is no longer an event, but a figure in statistics. Such a study was conducted by Amazon in 2006:
Every 0.1 seconds of delay costs 1% of sales.
The Internet audience is becoming more and more impatient and demanding both for the quality of content and for the speed of its download.
If you are counting on mobile traffic, then you should know:
74% of visitors leave a mobile site that takes more than five seconds to load
On the contrary, fast page loading has a positive effect on the loyalty of visitors and their behavior.