Loading… Please wait… Waiting too long? Speed up your brand’s website! Make a good first impression with user satisfaction! [Every Thursday: FYO!]
You’re searching through the Internet for different ways to market your brand online. You click on a particular website and suddenly…
“Loading… Please wait…”
Ten seconds have passed, yet the page is still loading.
Do you stop waiting and move to another website?
If your answer is “yes,” don’t worry, you’re not the only one who does that…
Page Speed is the length of time it takes to display all the contents of a website page, as well as the time it takes for a browser to receive the first batch of information from a web server.
There are three common ways to measure page speed:
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Fully Loaded Page. This refers to the time it takes for 100% of a page’s contents to load on a certain web browser.
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Time to First Byte. This measures how long it takes for a single website page to begin the loading process.
If you’ve experienced staring at a white screen for a few seconds, that’s Time to First Byte at work.
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First Meaningful Paint. This is the time it takes for a page to load enough of its contents so readers can start reading while the rest of the contents are still loading.
As a business owner or marketer who wants to increase his or her brand’s online visibility, should page speed matter to you?
The answer is YES.
Having a shorter loading time to your brand’s website page helps provide a better on-page experience for your online visitors and customers.
According to an infographic published by web analytics tool KISSmetrics, 47% of online users expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less and about 40% of visitors abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds of loading time.
Even Google knows how important page speed is for online users and brands across the web.
In 2010, the search engine announced that it would include page speed as one of the ranking factors for its search index.
Google also developed an AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) Project to make web pages load more quickly on mobile devices.
As of 2020, Google further gave importance to online user experience by launching Page Experience, a tool that will evaluate web pages by the quality of user experience.
Here are some of the ways your brand can benefit from a faster page speed:
- Improve user experience. The main reason to speed up your brand’s web page loading time (or website in general) is to improve your online visitor’s experience while they’re browsing through your site.
Great content, graphics, and website interface can influence visitors to stay on your site a little bit longer, but the real first impression is from your page speed.
If your brand’s website takes beyond 10 seconds for its loading time, visitors will shift their attention to another website with a shorter loading time and you will lose the traffic you need to strengthen your brand’s online presence.
- Achieve your brand’s marketing goals with higher conversion rates and user satisfaction. Speeding up your page’s loading time will help you reach your marketing goals, whether it is improving conversion rates, reducing bounce rates, improving your service for your customers, or all of the three.
According to Google’s report, a one-second delay in a page’s load time decreases an online visitor’s satisfaction by 16%. 79% of those visitors would not buy from a brand if they are dissatisfied with its website performance.
Aside from that, a study conducted by marketing company Aberdeen Group found that a one-second delay in page loading could lead to a 7% loss in sales conversions.
Your brand’s web page speed also affects the number of views to your site. Google studies show that a delay of just 0.5 second can lead to a 20% loss in website traffic. A one-second delay can result in 11% fewer page views.
- Strengthen your brand’s SEO positioning. In order for your brand to be recognized in the vast Internet landscape, your website has to attain good scores on the page rank algorithm.
Part of Google’s move to include page speed on its ranking signals for websites is to lower the rank of sites that lack value or take too much time to load.
This is because a Google study found that 1 to 10 seconds of page load time increases the bounce rate probability (the rate of online visitors who enter your site and then leave after viewing only one page) by 123%.
The faster your website’s page speed is, the more that Google can crawl and index your pages, giving you and your brand a higher chance to rank individual pages across the Internet.
Although there are a lot of factors that affect page speed―HTML code, page element styles, JavaScript files, images, videos, multimedia, as well as a user’s location and internet speed―you can still make a few changes to your website to shorten your page load time.
Here are some things you can do to speed up your brand’s website:
- Compress the images you include on your website. Compressing your website’s images or shrinking the file size of the images can help you save space and loading time on your web pages.
- Use a cache. As a special storage space for temporary files, a cache enables a device, browser, or app to load faster. Once an online user visits your website for the first time, a cache will store files, images, and other data on their device.
- Clear up your website’s redirects. Having too many redirects on your site can confuse your browser and lead to a slow load time. Check for any redirects on your brand’s website and simplify them as much as possible.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN works by spreading the server load across several locations, letting the closest server provide data to local users. Scattering the server load based on geographical location can help speed up your page’s loading time.
- Create an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP). According to 2015 data from Google, AMP cuts load time by 15% to 85% in initial tests. If you want to drive more online traffic to your brand’s website, setting up an AMP can help you achieve that.
It’s not just the content that drives online users to visit your brand’s website. The technicalities of setting up a website also plays a role in the rise and fall of your brand’s conversion rate.
Remember: For every second you shave off from your page’s loading time, you’ll boost user satisfaction on your site.
Do a page speed check and see if there’s still anything you can improve.
Page speed may seem like just a small thing, but it can make a big difference on how users interact with your brand online.
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Thursdays: FYO! Find You Optimization”
Why should you stop thinking SEO and start thinking FYO?
We’re not saying that you should abandon Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Don’t get us wrong, of course, we know this is something very important, especially in today’s digital marketing age.
The internet landscape is vast, and a world of its own. You really need to distinguish yourself and make your brand/company/website known and easily searchable.
Better yet, get to the top of page one for Top Results on Google or any other search engine.
However, what is the purpose of SEO? It’s that customers Find You!
That’s what matters. So, while SEO is one factor of FYO… it really is only one, and we ought not to abandon all the myriad of ways digitally and offline for improving your FYO.
How can we look at this from a different and better perspective?
Let’s say you have it in the bag! You and your team are experts in SEO. Awesome. But did you ever wonder what else you could do to push it further and give your SEO skills a boost?
FYO! Find You Optimization!
You need your target audience to FIND YOU—your brand, product, service, or offer. This is SEO plus other tools that increase visibility online (and offline).
Every Thursday, we publish content on how you can get your target market to find you, beyond the typical “type and search.” There are other things you can do along with your SEO to give your online advertising process a boost.
Try considering other tactics beyond it—WOMO (Word Of Mouth Optimization), RO (Referral Optimization), and “All-Other-Means-Of-Getting-Your-Target-Market-To-Find-You” Optimization (AOMOGYTMTFY, if you’d like a long acronym).
Part of a great marketing strategy is knowing how to adapt new methods and make use of different types of marketing and promotion that best fit your business goals and which give you the results you want.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Thursday’s FYO!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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www.valens-research.com
