“How quickly should my website load?”
That’s one of the most common questions we get.
The quick answer is three seconds or less as recommended by Google.
When it comes to customer experience, speed matters. And when it comes SEO, again speed matters!
Speed is the reason why fast-food is a staple meal. It is why customers hate long wait-time when calling a customer care number. And it’s the reason we gave you the quick answer right at the beginning of this article.
In this post, we will seek to understand why website load speed matters, what’s the current standard and how you can improve your website’s performance.
What is page load speed?
Webpage speed or load time refers to the time it takes for a visitor to see the content once they have landed on a site.
But the answer isn’t as straightforward as that. Simply saying “my site loads in X seconds” doesn’t present the complete reality.
Why?
Because website load speed is a fluid concept because:
- Web pages load piece by piece – not all at once.
- Load speed differs from web page to web page and user to user, based on the respective page’s attributes and the user’s device, browser and internet speed.
How is page load time measured?
Don’t think of website speed as a specific number, say 3 seconds.
After all, there’s a huge difference in what a test data tells and how people experience it in reality.
For instance, let’s say you and your friend are visiting a webpage at different internet speeds and from different devices. Sure, the website may take the same amount of time to load completely.
But, perhaps you were able to see the images loading right as you landed, even if not all at once. As for your friend, he sees a blank white screen until the complete page loads up, leaving him to wonder whether the site even works!
How important is website load time as a ranking factor?
Website speed is one of the top 100 ranking factors that Google considers when ranking websites. In fact, as of 2018, page speed is a ranking factor even for mobile searches.
A slow-loading website can be a negative ranking factor, which means if your site is really slow, Google may crawl your site slower. And that’s not a good sign – especially if you add a ton of new content or editing lots of content on your site.
How fast should your site load?
The average page speed of top-ranking sites in Google is below 3 seconds.
Given that more than half the people leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds, you have a huge opportunity to improve your rankings and increase site traffic simply by increasing website speed.
Is your site fast enough?
If your website is really slow, it’s time to invest in a new website design. Contact Walker Digital for a modern, user-friendly, mobile-friendly and fast-loading website for your business.
