(Lack of) Speed Kills: If Your Website is Too Slow to Load, Visitors Will Go Elsewhere
Your website is like a showroom. You've spent time, energy and money getting people there. The pay-off comes when these potential customers actually come to see you. They can check out what you have to offer and discuss the problems that you solve. How many people do you think will come inside if the door's hard to open?
Most will only get as far as your sidewalk. Some may take a peek through your window, but there's something really wrong with this door. It's like there's a fifty pound weight behind it, so getting inside takes a lot of time. A few might stick to it and go inside to see what you have to offer, but your street is filled with the showrooms of your competition. They're just a quick walk away and most of your neighbors' doors open with ease. They just walk right in.
Once someone's inside your showroom, there are other rooms where your visitor can learn about all your products and services. One room lays out how you've helped other clients. Another room informs the visitor about your business and the wonderful qualifications of those who work there. But all the doors to these rooms have the same problem. They take forever to open. What few motivated visitors you've gotten inside are probably heading back outside. They've got better things to do with their time.
Website visitors don't have the patience to wait while your pages download. Their time has value and no one likes having their time wasted. We're no longer in the internet's stone age of downloading over phone lines. People are used to and expect websites to quickly download. If that isn't happening they're not going to stick around to see what you have to offer.
They'll move on to your competition's website. If their website functions better and pages load faster, that's a competitive advantage. Their visitors will probably stick around longer and explore what your competition has to offer. It's a better experience because that website works like it's supposed to while your website offers visitors frustration and wasted time.
It's not just human beings who are concerned with the speed of your website. The search engines that get your potential customers to it care as well.
- Search engines make money by attracting users, gathering their information and showing them advertising. In order to attract users they have to, like all businesses, give the people what they want. For a search engine that's not only an answer to a question or a relevant response to a query, but it's the practically instantaneous speed in which it's delivered.
- Search engines have made huge investments in supplying relevant responses quickly. They don't want their users then slogging through slowly loading websites. So they test the speed of website pages.
- Those that load faster are more likely to be listed higher in response to a query. More and more people are using mobile devices so Google sees a quick and easy mobile experience as more important than ever so it ranks slower mobile user experiences lower.
A fully functional, quickly loading website not only makes your potential customers happy, but also the search engines that get them there. LyncServe specializes in custom websites created by engineers who really know how to make your website look great and perform as it should, quickly. Don't waste your time, and the time of your potential customers, with anything else. If you want a new website or your existing one needs updating, contact us today by filling out our online form or call us at 267.364.5049.
