Optimize Your Page Load Speed for Higher Ranking & Conversion!
Performance! Performance! Performance!
Slow loading pages are super annoying and will surely result in a low conversion rates because they cause your visitors to bounce off and abandon your page. We’re all guilty of it, because we have an expectation that a web or mobile page should load quickly and give us the information we need at the snap of our finger!
In a case study by Soasta titled, “Mobile Web Performance Monitoring and Conversion Rate”, it is stated that the performance “sweet spot” for consumers is 2.4 seconds, and pages with an average page load speed of 2.4 seconds had a conversion rate of 1.9%. Interestingly, pages that are just one second faster experienced a 27% conversion rate increase.
In today’s digital market, the importance of optimizing your page load speed cannot be over emphasized. Your mobile and web pages must capture the attention of your visitors almost INSTANTLY with what you are offering them and what you want them to do. This means that you need to reduce the time it takes for your page to load. Even a one second delay can drastically impact your conversion. Performance is so critical that Google Webmaster announced that starting July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches. In a Twitter feed, Google Webmaster also wrote: “Fast sites are awesome for users, especially on mobile, since devices & connections there tend to be slower than with desktops.”
Here are 4 simple ways to improve your page load performance and increase the load speed of your web and mobile page:
#1 Reduce the Number of HTTP Requests
Always think about your users and their experience with your page. An article in Yahoo Developer Network titled, Best Practices for Speeding up your Website, suggests that 80% of user experience is spent downloading the components of a page (images, stylesheets, scripts, flash, etc.). Since HTTP requests are made for each element on your page, they will have a big impact on your performance. So, the more “stuff” you have on your page, the longer it will take for your page to load, and the higher your bounce rate.
A Digital Optimization Audit (SEO Audit), will audit and analyze your site to see how many HTTP requests your site makes. From there, recommendations will be given on how to reduce that number.
#2 Optimize Your Images
You can optimize your images by scaling their size and significantly increasing your page loading time. Also make sure that your images are optimized for the web. Flash and other plug-ins can also slow down the load speed of your page, because they may not compatible with the user’s device. So try to avoid using these altogether. An Optimizely Blog by shanebarker titled, How to Optimize a Mobile Landing Page that Converts, states that the goal should be to keep the size of a mobile landing page at around 20 kilobytes.
#3 Create Simple Designs
One way to reduce the number of components in the page is to simplify the page’s design. This is especially important if you use a templated website builder. Templates make it easy to build a site, but they can slow down your site considerably. A Digital Optimization Audit (SEO Audit) will look catch and correct the issues in your code from website templates. A Digital Audit will make recommendations on how to make your site as lean as possible.
#4 Create Catchy and Short Headline
Create page headlines that are short and catchy, and don’t need any images! The purpose of your headline is to give users an understanding of what your product, service or message is, then lead them to your Call-to-Action (CTA). Where possible, avoid images and catch your users with bold and effective headlines.
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