Website Speed Is The First Impression
Your website’s speed is the first thing that your potential customers will experience about your business. It’s their first impression of your company. That in itself is an important enough reason to have a fast loading website – but it's still not the biggest reason to improve your site speed.
Measuring Site Speed
Site speed is really nothing more than how long it takes your website to load and be usable for a visitor. There are many other factors here, but it can all be summed up to how quickly your site loads for the user. It all comes down to user experience – and if you're a business owner, you definitely want to provide a good user experience for your existing and potential customers.
Your prospects and customers will immediately make a judgement about the quality of your business, your products and your services based on how quickly your website loads – it's true. Think about your own web activity- if a site takes too long to load, do you stick around and wait or hit the “back” button? Most users are going to hit the “back” button and find the information, or services, elsewhere.
A slow website leads users to believe the business doesn't care about their visitors, and isn't paying attention to the important things that lead to a good customer experience. If your website isn't user friendly, most likely the rest of your customer experience won't be either.
It's purely psychological, but it's a logical assumption. Businesses who are on the cutting edge and care about their customers are providing a fast, and easy to use, secure website – plain and simple. These are the businesses people want to work with and trust with their projects and money.
Site speed is really nothing more than how long it takes your website to load and be usable for a visitor. There are many other factors here, but it can all be summed up to how quickly your site loads for the user. It all comes down to user experience – and if you're a business owner, you definitely want to provide a good user experience for your existing and potential customers.
Your prospects and customers will immediately make a judgement about the quality of your business, your products and your services based on how quickly your website loads – it's true. Think about your own web activity- if a site takes too long to load, do you stick around and wait or hit the “back” button? Most users are going to hit the “back” button and find the information, or services, elsewhere.
A slow website leads users to believe the business doesn't care about their visitors, and isn't paying attention to the important things that lead to a good customer experience. If your website isn't user friendly, most likely the rest of your customer experience won't be either.
It's purely psychological, but it's a logical assumption. Businesses who are on the cutting edge and care about their customers are providing a fast, and easy to use, secure website – plain and simple. These are the businesses people want to work with and trust with their projects and money.
It Only Takes Three Seconds
The average user will only wait three seconds for a page to load. That means that if your site takes even one extra second, you’re already losing customers. If it takes more
than that, you’ve lost the majority of your potential web visitors.
Businesses that have a solid online marketing strategy for their business are investing a fair amount of time and money into driving traffic to their website. Losing a large percentage of those visitors due to slow loading is really troubling and leads to a terrible ROI. What's worse, is that the majority of users said they would never return to a website that didn't load properly for them the first time. You have to get this right – and the good news is that it isn't really all that hard or expensive in most cases. It just takes the right team of professional web designers to get your site up to speed and loading quickly.
Chat With The Experts
Marketing your business online doesn’t have to be challenging, and with the right team, it won’t be. Schedule your free discovery call with a member of our team today to learn how we can help your business grow with effective digital marketing.
Google Ranks On Speed
It’s important to note that Google’s number one priority is to provide a good user experience to those who use their search engine. This means that they have worked all of the things that provide a good user experience into their ranking algorithm.
This means that if your site isn’t loading quickly and providing a good user experience, they’re less likely to show your website to potential customers. Google has stated that it will reduce the number of crawlers it sends to your site if your loading speed is greater than two seconds. The “crawlers” are how they determine which businesses to show in search results.
So for anyone who is investing in search engine optimization services, or is serious about having their websites rank organically, page speed is a critical factor – there's no way around it.
Before Checking Site Speed, Website Security Is A Must
We have many clients who have come to us to take over SEO efforts they were having run by another agency, or were doing in-house, and the first thing we do – even before talking about SEO strategy, keywords, search volume, or anything of the likes is to first – make sure the website is secure (this is a must as well), and then we check the site speed.
As a local digital marketing agency, we’re regularly shocked with how many companies were trying to get ranked organically, and had put in a bunch of effort with new content, articles and all the works – but hadn't ever fixed the foundational issues first – site speed. It's like building a house on beach sand for a foundation – it's throwing good money after bad, and there's no reason for it.
Before you start any SEO campaign, and before you invest in any form of paid traffic – even before you send referral traffic to your website, it's absolutely urgent that you make sure your site is user friendly and loads in a reasonable amount of time.
We have many clients who have come to us to take over SEO efforts they were having run by another agency, or were doing in-house, and the first thing we do – even before talking about SEO strategy, keywords, search volume, or anything of the likes is to first – make sure the website is secure (this is a must as well), and then we check the site speed.
As a local digital marketing agency, we’re regularly shocked with how many companies were trying to get ranked organically, and had put in a bunch of effort with new content, articles and all the works – but hadn't ever fixed the foundational issues first – site speed. It's like building a house on beach sand for a foundation – it's throwing good money after bad, and there's no reason for it.
Before you start any SEO campaign, and before you invest in any form of paid traffic – even before you send referral traffic to your website, it's absolutely urgent that you make sure your site is user friendly and loads in a reasonable amount of time.
Free Tools To Check Site Speed
The two most widely recommended tools online are from Pingdom and GTMetrix. We have found that the GTMetrix reports are the most reliable for our use, and they provide very detailed insights about what needs to be done to improve speed.
When working on site speed, it’s important to note that some changes will take a larger amount of time, so it’s important to weigh your options and the ROI. If you’re struggling with where to start or understanding your report, book a time to chat with us at https://nhstrategicmarketing.com/meet-with-kyle/.
The NH Strategic Marketing Difference
As a digital marketing agency, our view on websites is different. We often find that many other companies focus solely on making your site “pretty” but don’t focus on all of the “under the hood” stuff that will actually help you get ranked on search engines.
When we start a new website project, we approach it with the mindset of driving quality traffic to your site and how it will look to your users. From site speed and security to the user experience from start to finish, we work to ensure that your site is the best possible lead conversion tool for your business.
Whether you’re looking to increase your site speed on an existing site, redesign your site, or start a new website, our team is here to help. Book a time to chat with us about how we can help your business grow.
As a digital marketing agency, our view on websites is different. We often find that many other companies focus solely on making your site “pretty” but don’t focus on all of the “under the hood” stuff that will actually help you get ranked on search engines.
When we start a new website project, we approach it with the mindset of driving quality traffic to your site and how it will look to your users. From site speed and security to the user experience from start to finish, we work to ensure that your site is the best possible lead conversion tool for your business.
Whether you’re looking to increase your site speed on an existing site, redesign your site, or start a new website, our team is here to help. Book a time to chat with us about how we can help your business grow.
Time To Meet With Kyle Battis
Kyle Battis has been involved in advertising and marketing since 1999. He has a background in Website Design, Direct Marketing, Online Media Buying commanding $150,000 per Month Ad budgets, Live Presentations, and he has extensive experience designing Marketing Campaigns that make money for small businesses.