When considering the performance of your website, speed absolutely matters.
A recent post, and great read, from Josh Bledsoe on ClickZ about Why Fast-Loading Websites Matter hit the nail on the head when he stated “performance digital marketing starts with a website that performs,” and the “most critical problem is that your website takes too long to load and it’s hurting your brand.” Intuitively this makes sense and empirically the consequences are dire, “during the first second of delay your conversion drops by more than 7%, with the percentage growing exponentially for every additional second you make someone wait.” People are not patient and 40% of people will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Bledsoe has identified some shifts in the digital space that can’t be ignored. He has aptly noted there is a ‘conundrum’ where web design and web user expectations are working against each other. Consumers expect the bells and whistles but won’t sacrifice speed. Organizations are trying to meet the customers wants and desires but introducing the latest and greatest means greater attention needs to be paid to the technical basics. Bigger and more rich graphics are desirable but how does this affect page loads? Websites are organic and as they grow they need to be tended to.
When pursuing optimal performance, measuring how speed impacts the performance of your website is critical. So vital that the article stresses “your most important task in digital marketing this year is to optimize your page load times for both mobile and desktop,” with the goal of having sites load in one second or less. The stressed importance of measurement from a baseline in order to optimize a site and improve performance has us over here at Powershifter emphatically nodding our heads.
We believe one of the best places to start optimizing a site is to focus on speed. And if you really want to commit to optimizing the performance of your site, don’t neglect the overall experience. First get speedy, then come back and review the UX and design, because as much as speed matters so too does the flow the user takes through a site. Consumers have high expectations and right now “46% of mobile users report having difficulty interacting with a web page, and 44% complain that navigation was difficult” so when looking at your site remember it’s the end to end experience that matters.
There is no resting on reputation because although a brand can compensate for a less than optimal experience for a short while, it is not impervious for the long haul. At the end of the day your customers expect your sites, apps, and platforms to consistently deliver amazing, seamless experiences. And the speed of completing actions quickly is a key pre-requisite.