Let’s face it, internet users are impatient. In fact, one study suggests that a single second in loading time could cost a big seller like Amazon billions of dollars each year.
When OnlineGraduatePrograms.com looked at user tolerance for slow-loading sites, the results were stunning. One in four U.S. web surfers will leave a site if it takes longer than 4 seconds to load. 40% give up on mobile sites after 3 seconds. Realizing this, Google now uses loading time as a search ranking factor.
Does your site measure up in the speed department? If not, what can you do to give it a boost?
If you’re managing your own site, one of the first things to look at is your image sizes. E-commerce sites tend to be “image-heavy” and loading them at larger-than-needed sizes can slow things down. Look at your style sheets and caching rules, too. Is your content delivery network (CDN) speedy enough? Setting expiration dates will keep unneeded content from bogging down your site. It’s a good idea to move any JavaScript to the end of the page, too.
These are relatively easy fixes for someone who’s reasonably geeky, but the real improvements come on the back end, a place where only experts should tinker around. Tweaking databases can result in significant speed improvements, but changing the wrong configuration variable can cause an expensive mess. Queries are another place where rewriting and indexing can make dramatic improvements, but again, these are things best left to expert web developers.
If your website is slow or not delivering the results you want, you don’t have to risk trying to solve the problems on your own. Our web developers and designers have been building websites for over 16 years, giving us the experience and knowledge to build sites that perform at the top of the class. Let us help you speed up your site’s performance! Call 720-221-7126 to get going.