Fixing slow load times and poor mobile experience will dramatically increase the number of website visitors who stay on your website and that could potentially turn into clients.
40% of users abandon a website if it loads in more than three seconds (BigCommerce) and slow speed can slash conversion rates by up to 80% (AfterPay). I can hear you already saying, but our consultancy site is not eCommerce. The same rules apply.
This week I was working on a website that has seen a gradual decrease in visitors and sales. A quick speed check showed some issues that we can work on resolving.
Page speed & why it’s important
Have you ever looked for something on Google and then clicked the link only to wait, and wait, and wait for it to load? Likely you have, but if you are impatient like me, you will leave and find another website that loads quicker.
Load times don’t only affect people who are visiting your website. They also affect search engine rankings. Google takes the signals from slow page loads when it crawls the website and from people who bounce from your site and are not retained. If users leave, it makes the assumption that your site is not a quality website and doesn’t provide searchers for the answers they are looking for.
And don’t forget to check both desktop and mobile speeds. Searches on mobile now top those on desktop for most industries. There are a few like banking that are less, but for health, food & beverage, sports, lifestyle, and automotive more than 6/10 searches are on a mobile (Hitwise/Connexity).
A slow website says that you are unprofessional and undermines trust in your business. And that’s critical for businesses that need to build trust to win sales.
Test your website
Test your website regularly. If you use a web developer or SEO consultant, this is part of their remit. Any development change can affect your page speed and usability.
There are plenty of tools to do this, but Google offers free tools in Search Console and on Page Speed Insights. Once you have tested the site, investigate the reasons why the page is slow to load. These can be the server speed, page size, bloated code (javascript & css are typical culprits), and more.
Optimise your website
Images and media files that are large add up to large page loads. If you upload four images at 5mb each, the page size rockets to 20mb. The lower you can keep page size, the better. Of course, there is a compromise. Most business owners I work with want to show off their services with big splashy images and video content.
Bloated code is another common issue. Every plugin that you add to a WordPress site adds to the code. Every fancy piece of animation, e.g. slideshows or hide/reveal for FAQs will use more code. Code can be concatenated and minified to reduce size and thus page load. Again, this may lead to compromises. Fast websites are lean and clean.
Your hosting provider may impact your page load. If you are using a shared hosting package for your website you are sharing your server with many other websites. There is a tendency for hosting providers to squeeze as many websites in as they can, for obvious commercial reasons. The host provider is also responsible for updating software e.g. PHP versions.
If your website requires a lot of http requests, this can cause a burden on the server. Server caching can speed your website up. Using a content delivery network can also improve page loads as the pages are served by local servers.
An SEO audit will pick up these issues so that they can be addressed. I recommend an SEO audit as the first step in working together so that we can assess the current situation and plan to improve the website.
Your developer will be able to make changes that can improve page speed. These can include
- Compressing images and using lazy loading for below the fold content
- Streamlining code and resources, minimising or combining files and removing old code and/or plugins
- Implementing browser caching and setting up a content delivery network service
- Cleaning up the site structure and reducing redirects
Mobile experience
Your web developer should code your website so that it is responsive. This will make it resize when a mobile user is visiting the website to whatever size their screen is. This is standard practice now, but I still encounter older websites when it was the fashion to code a second ‘mobile-version’ of the website. It had less information on it, or looked completely different to the ‘main site’.
Think about mobile users when you plan your website menus. Mobile users have ‘fat fingers’ and when buttons or links or menus are too small they become unusable and frustrating for the user who will leave the website and might not come back.
Make the website easy to use. This is a no-brainer. Easy to use websites feel professional to the visitor. This is especially important if you are a health provider and you need an older demographic or people with disabilities to access your service. Regardless, it pays dividends to make it easy for people to find the information they need and easy for them to contact you.
Pop-ups can be an issue on mobile screens, particularly when they are too big and when there is no clear way for them to be removed. Users leave rather than work out what to do next. Always test new features to make sure that they are user-friendly.
SEO maintenance
SEO is an ongoing exercise. Keep monitoring your website analytics to see if anything changes. If there is a drop in visitors or conversions investigate why that is. I’ve already mentioned that speed tests and website audits should happen regularly, so that you can catch and fix any issues that arise over time.
SEO is constantly changing. Google releases updates regularly, seven in the last year. Keep up to speed with what is changing and what is now best practice.
Is your website driving clients away?
There is no reason to accept the status quo. Websites need maintenance and regular testing to improve site speed and keep it mobile friendly are good business practices. Slow pages lose clients by irritating them and mobile users will leave if they cannot find what they need.
I offer freelance SEO services for service based businesses and help them to audit and address any issues that are found on their website that might be driving clients away. Send me a message today and let’s talk.