People around the globe have developed high expectations for their online shopping experiences, and sites that don’t meet customer needs risk being overshadowed by other retailers. Does your site have what it takes to stay relevant, retain loyal customers, and entice new visitors?
Why Page Speed Matters
Nearly half of online shoppers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less, and 40% of people say that they would abandon a website if it took more than 3 seconds to load. In other words, today’s consumers are not willing to wait around for a site to load; they’re far more likely to head to another store instead.
If you’re experiencing high bounce rates, your store is likely in need of a performance boost. If your page speed constantly lags behind your competitors’, you could be losing conversions, customers, and revenue as more visitors grow impatient with your website. Think of the situation like this: visitors that “bounce” from your site are probably going to end up benefiting your competitors.
Recommended Practices
Charles Kim, the chief operating officer and co-founder of Executive Digital, wrote an article for Forbes to detail the importance of fast web performance. His first tip is to use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights test to gain insights about your store. This tool will provide helpful information about why your site may not be performing well and suggest tips to fix the issues.
Secondly, Kim points out several factors that can end up slowing down page speed that Google might not recognize. You might be able to boost your page speed by simply resolving the following issues:
- Unoptimized images
- File size minification
- Web host efficiency
- The use of apps, such as Flash
- Overly complex themes and designs
- Embedded media, such as videos, pulled from other websites
- Heavy widget use
For Magento users, additional tips can be found in Magento DevDocs, particularly the Performance Best Practices page. There, you can find recommendations for your software, hardware, development environment, and configuration practices to ensure your store is set up for optimal performance.
Benefits of Improving Site Performance
In addition to reducing your site’s bounce rate, improving page speed can benefit other key aspects of your business. For example, both Walmart and Amazon recorded a 10% increase in revenue for every second they eliminated from their page load times! While you may not see results quite as extreme as these, you’ll still be able to reap benefits such as:
- Improved SEO. Google’s algorithm prefers sites that offer better user experiences. If your site has high bounce rates, it won’t rank as highly on the results page. When you resolve the performance issues and people stop leaving your site before the content loads, Google will place you higher in search results.
- More page views. Naturally, the higher you rank in Google’s search results, the more people will be able to find your website!
- Increased conversions. Every second you can remove from the checkout experience will prevent customers from second-guessing their decision to buy from your store. Furthermore, a faster site creates a smoother customer shopping journey as they click through various items.
Get a Quick Commerce Boost
If you want to know what’s slowing down your site and get it fixed ASAP, Wagento is now offering a Commerce Boost package to get you on the right track. The in-depth performance review will uncover issues on your home page, product landing pages, checkout, and other pages of your website that could be decreasing performance. Once all of the problems are brought to light, Wagento experts will create a step-by-step plan to resolve these issues, and even take care of a few tasks for you!
To give your site a quick performance boost, head to the Commerce Boost page to connect with one of our developers or learn more about the process!
