Let me tell you why site speed matters:
I love Forbes articles, but almost every time I try to read them on my laptop there are so many ads, videos, high-tech menus, and high-resolution graphics trying to load that my computer fan starts to make a noise like an animal trapped in a well, and the page freezes.
So I don’t read Forbes much anymore.
I’m not just writing this article to complain about a random website (though I admit that’s at least 30% of my motivation). Rather, I want to make two points:
For every extra second a page takes to load on a site, 7% of the potential revenue on that page is lost.
That’s only pages that load slowly. Pages that crash consistently, I can only assume, have an even worse effect.
Here are some more statistics:
Basically, if you want to have an online presence, there’s a good argument to be made for taking care of site speed before anything else.
Businesses, especially big businesses, tend to be run by the type of people who like to wow their customers. For many CEOs, presentation is everything. Especially in marketing, since a marketing approach that emphasizes flash and style has been in vogue for decades.
Unfortunately, when it comes to websites, this can be exactly the wrong approach. Modern web users don’t want flash, they want convenience and simplicity.
They want a page that loads quickly much more than they want an awesome animated banner.
Really, this is good news for a small business. It means that it takes fewer resources to satisfy customers than many believe. And it also means that huge companies with a lot of money to throw at web design don’t necessarily have the advantage.
So there you have it. If your site isn’t loading quickly, then you can make a difference in your sales today by fixing it.
Want someone to just take care of all your site’s technical problems for you, so you don’t ever have to think about them? Joe’s Web Geeks will do that for you.