Slow Loading Web Pages Lose Sales!

As mobile internet revs up in the decade of realtime search, visitors expect fast loading sites and instant access. Users still have little tolerance for slow loading websites, leading to time critical sales or info gathering  being all too  easily lost to a competitor!

There was a time when the most common reason for a slow loading webpage onto a deskbound PC was the large image. Today, website accessibility by netbooks, mobile smartphones and tablets is expected to be instant, even if a webpage is densely populated by all manner of static and moving imagery.

Yet web surfing patience has not improved over the years! Studies have found that a 10 second delay or more loading time will propel most customers to abandon websites. Even repeated delays of a few seconds is enough to spoil the user experience. On eCommerce sites, even a delay of over a second or two is likely to prove frustrating for users, so a two-second rule is now considered a reasonable benchmark. A recent study of UK eCommerce sites found that the best average page load time was 4.45 seconds.

As has been often repeated, in the one click competitive environment of the web, the slightest obstacle can put a potential visitor off – and this does nor bode well for the first impression of a site’s brand identity and encouraging repeat visits.

Today’s complex data processing on the server and the presence of elaborate ‘widgets’ – which are often the last thing on the page to load – seem to be the cause of the delays. Often a large promotional area can fail to load for up to eight seconds after the rest of the page, causing the user to ignore it even after it had finally loaded!

Focusing on web design issues: it has often been pointed out that the use of Flash can slow down page loading times even on fast connections and its use really should be avoided anyway as it is well known that search engines cannot recognise the software.

In addition, if several elements of individual web pages, such as ads, images, audio or video are loading up from other websites, then this will also slow up the total load time. Reducing the number of these types of components on a webpage will reduce the number of requests and make for a faster loading page and compressing images
is traditionally a good way to reduce file size by 50 per cent or more.

As in all things to do with website functionality, business owners need to work closely with their web design and marketing team to regularly test website load times are acceptable and how different pages will respond to different levels of traffic.

Remember – user access is expected to be just about instant on today’s platforms, and in the era of mobile applications, ‘first come first serve’, is more than ever, likely to be the savvy business online marketing mantra.