You’ve got your website online and optimized for search engines. But is that enough? Not according to Google. If your visitors have to wait for more than 2.5 seconds, 53% of them will leave. That’s why it’s important to give your visitors the fastest possible experience. Not only will it increase engagement across the website, but it will also increase the website’s conversion rate, ultimately increasing sales.
But how does page speed determine conversion rates?
First, let’s take a look at what affects page speed load time. Google states “The average amount of time (in seconds) it takes that page to load, from initiation of the pageview (e.g., click on a page link) to load completion in the browser.” From the time a user clicks a link until the page loads to completion, everything that is loaded from your website will affect the load speed. Images and frontend code (HTML, CSS, and Javascript) affect load times the most. Compressing image files and minifying your programming code can greatly increase load time. Minifying code removes extra commas and spaces, and Gzip will compress the data file to make it even smaller. If you have WordPress, there are plenty of plugins available, and if you have a premium account chances are Jetpack already has you covered.
There are other metrics, too, such as site speed and server response time, but the most important thing to consider is the amount of data being transferred and if that data is optimized. By using the aforementioned tips, you can drastically increase the performance of your homepage and ultimately your entire website.