Website speed ​​is vital. Studies have shown that most users have very little patience with pages that take time to load and they tend to leave. This is bad for bounce rate, which is a big factor of website ranking. In the business world, that means lost customers and revenue. Get to know your websites speed by requesting your web hosting platform for these metrics.

The loading time of your website not only influences your ranking but the number of loyal customers and the number of sales you get. Nobody likes inconvenience. The faster the website speed you have, the higher the level of customer satisfaction and sales you will get. Period.

Why Web Speed Optimization Is Important

1. Improves loyalty. According to statistics, the Kissmetrics survey shows that 79% of users are less likely to revisit a website with performance problems. Additionally, 52% of shoppers surveyed say that performance is an important ingredient for their loyalty to a website. This means that the fastest websites generate quality leads.
   The website loading speed optimization example from Walmart can explain this perfectly. After measuring website loading time and conducting initial analysis, the company found that users who converted had a loading speed twice as fast as those who did not convert.
2. Speed is one of the SEO factors. On April 9, 2010, Google (the most popular search engine) announced that they were including a new criterion in their evolving algorithms for search ranking. What was the new consideration going to be? “Website speed”. The speed factor they talked about showed how important an efficient and agile web response to an impatient request from a search engine is.
3. Improves user satisfaction. Speedy response time and improving website efficiency has become increasingly important to most Internet users; and in turn, website operators. This has been shown to promote Internet visitor satisfaction and reduce website operating costs.
4. Higher bounce rate. Internal studies done by Google showed that when a website responds slowly; visitors spent less time on such site. Recent research on web browsing habits shows that web pages experience a 33% drop rate if they take longer than four seconds. As you can imagine, this is an undesirable result for most anxious website owners; and determined webmasters. With this practice, it appears that Google is rewarding websites for providing excellent and efficient customer service with a higher ranking in search results.
5. Improves your SEO ranking. By improving your website's response speed to queries, you could improve your overall search engine ranking. Most importantly, however, a fast and efficient website is constantly working to improve everyone's experience on the World Wide Web. Many consumers are looking for quick solutions to their problem. Google has clearly stated that among the 200+ factors they use to rank websites, speed is a major consideration. Of course, it is not known what the other factors are, but information like this need to be taken seriously. If your site is slow, it will appear at the bottom of Google search results. Google has a reputation to protect and will provide searchers with answers from websites that are fast and convenient.
6. Speed is an important factor in converting visitors into customers. Studies have indicated that every second someone has to wait for your page to load increases their potential to leave your website. The same study shows that 47% of visitors expect their website to load in 2 seconds or less and up to 79% of customers are unlikely to buy from a website again because of site performance. Think about the last time you called a business and the phone rang and rang for too long before you got a response. These kinds of things affect your purchasing decision and in the same way that your website speed affects your customer's decision.

If you want to make sure that your website will hold people's interest, then you have to be fast.

How Can You Improve Your Website’s Speed?

Modern, content-rich web pages typically have over 50 images, scripts, styles, and HTML. Each requires a separate trip from the browser to the server, and while data travels at the speed of light, the cumulative effect of these trips means slower web pages. In practical terms, it's a bit like taking individual trips to and from the grocery store for each item in the store. It will get there in the end, but it will certainly discourage you from shopping there again.

So, here are five ways you can improve your website’s speed;

1. Do a website speed test, this will show the page load speed worldwide. Do this test regularly and take action if you identify a poor page load time. Google estimates that a good speed load time is 3 seconds. Work towards this goal.
2. Optimize the images on your website. When you're creating images for the web, it's important to keep them small enough. Try saving your graphics as PNGs if they have less than 16 colours or JPEGS if they are photographs with more detail.
3. Reduce the size of your website’s CSS, HTML and Javascript files that are larger than 150 bytes to improve upload time.
4. Reduce the redirects of your pages from one to another because they make your page slower.
5. Use a Content Distribution Network (CDNs). These are networks of servers that distribute the load on delivering content. These systems store copies of your site across multiple, geographically diverse data centres where users have faster and more reliable access to your website.

If the front door of your business were to obstruct the entrance of your customers, you would fix it, right? After all, you would be losing business and loss of business means loss of income. It is the same on the internet, although it is much less obvious simply because the website is loading fast for you and you think it is the same for everyone else. By following the speed optimization tips above, you will reduce the potential loss of critical customers and sales each year in lost business without knowing it.