E-commerce is a virtual race and speed is the key component of any race. Site speed plays a very crucial role in e-commerce sector. Every e-commerce aims to increase their Conversion Rate and decrease the bounce rates. Many studies have been done to try and figure out the main cause for increasing bounce rates and studies show that one of the key reasons for increasing bounce rates is poor site load performance.

Should you care about site load speed?

As we move forward in time, our attention span decreases. Customers can get really frustrated and irritated with the site if they see the spinning wheel on their screens for more than 2-3 seconds.

A recent study suggested that over half of the internet users expect a website to load within 2 seconds. If the site fails to load under that time, the consumer might click away from your site to check if one of your competitors offers a better experience with a better page load performance.

Another study showed that around three-quarters of web users would not return to a website if it took longer than three seconds to load.

What does Google think about Site Speed?

 In 2018, Google announced a major change to its mobile ranking factors.

Site loading speed has been a desktop ranking factor since 2010, however, now it’s been implanted on mobile search results as well.

Mobile websites and search results now cover a high amount of traffic on the internet as mobile phones today have become capable of performing the same amount of functions as a desktop at home. This, combined with improving internet connectivity across the world, make mobile phones the most efficient and convenient platform to access the internet.

Google is the number one search engine which exists in the world. Hence, it needs to keep improving the search results it delivers. If a website doesn’t load fast enough, visitors will inevitably lose confidence in it and might end up losing its authority in the marketplace which results in losing potential customers.

The update only affected the slowest sites on the web. The new criteria were only designed to filter out slow sites, rather than rewarding fast sites.

Why page speed optimization is important?

 Website speed is an important determinant of your website’s success. In 2019, website speed is not a luxury, but a necessity. If you sacrifice on your page loading speed in exchange for adding more elements to your website, then you might end up losing more than you may gain.

Website performance is really an important indicator of online success. Even with great content and best Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a slow website will drive away visitors and make Google reconsider including your website in its result.

Does site speed help increase sales?

Website performance and speed has an immense effect on conversion rates. There are multiple studies which shows that fast page speed will result in a better conversion rate. The quicker a site loads, the more likely a consumer will stay on the page and interact with it.

A study conducted by skilled.co found that:

• Pages that loaded in 2.4 seconds had a 1.9% conversion rate
• At 3.3 seconds, conversion rate was 1.5%
• At 4.2 seconds, conversion rate was less than 1%
• At 5.7+ seconds, conversion rate was 0.6%

These increases might seem small,but can have a huge impact on how much revenue a site generates. If an e-commerce site produces a million dollars in sales per year, and if the conversion rate increases by 5% after the increase in site load time, that’s $50,000 increase in revenue.

Is your site speed fast enough?

There are many different website speed checker tools available online to check if your website is fast enough to compete with your competitors. Some of the recommendations to analyze website performance are :

• Google Insights
• GT Metrix
• Pingdom
• Uptrends

Most of the Digital Marketing Agencies ensure that the websites they design and build, load fast.But, over a time with cookies and caches, some features can slow down. So, it’s important to properly maintain the website while making sure that the site speed is fast enough.