Although most business owners know it’s important to have a website, some believe that as long as it looks good and the pages work, there’s nothing to worry about. But the truth is that if your website is ineffective or is slow to load, you’re going to find it difficult to keep customers coming back. In addition, Google takes this information into account and can penalize you for slow site speed, which will directly effect your rankings. If you still aren’t convinced that a slow-loading site is in need of better website solutions, read on.
A slow site will have a huge impact on sales
Simply put, a slow-moving website design will negatively effect your revenue stream. After all, 40% of users abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. The average person has neither the time nor the patience to sit around and wait for your site to load completely. Instead, they’ll abandon your page and look elsewhere. Site abandonment leads to lower conversion rates, which means you’ll have less revenue coming in. For websites that live and die by online sales, this can have disastrous consequences.
Google dislikes slow sites
Don’t forget that Google is always analyzing user behavior. When the search engine notices a high bounce rate for a certain site — meaning that users spend a small amount of time on the site before clicking back to their search results — they’re going to pay more attention to your site in general. Poor site performance can lead to lower search rankings, which makes it much harder for potential customers to find you. Even if your site has a lot of great content, this can still hurt you. Since there are reputable website solutions available for increasing your website speed, this is an outcome that can easily be avoided.
Slow sites are even worse on mobile
More users are conducting web searches on their phones than ever before. In fact, these mobile searches are quickly outnumbering searches performed on laptops and desktops. With so many customers utilizing their smartphones for this purpose, you can’t afford to ignore them. And since slow sites can be even more unbearable on mobile devices, they’ll be even quicker to abandon you. If you purposely disregard this demographic, your business will suffer as a result. Fortunately, web design services will ensure that your site is both fast and optimized for mobile.
Don’t think for a second that you’re stuck with a slow website. If you’re forced to wait more than a few seconds for your site to function, you need better website solutions. For more information on custom web development or on how Your Design Online can help improve the online experience for your customers, please contact us today.