We all have a need for speed.
In today’s fast-paced online world, how many times have you been stuck waiting for a website to load? We want our online information, and we want it quickly and efficiently.
When building your website, one goal you might have is to create an experience where people engage more deeply–which is why it’s essential to design a visually dynamic site. But don’t forget to focus on page load times, as this is an indicator of the overall site health.
Industry research reveals that users prefer sites with excellent page experiences and use criteria, such as how quickly pages load and mobile-friendliness, as factors in ranking results.
Using these criteria to build great digital experiences enables users to interact with your brand, find what they are looking for, and, in most cases, connect and secure a purchase or resource.
Core Web Vitals are a set of real-world, user-centered metrics that quantify the user experience. It evaluates critical aspects of your website by measuring page speed, interactivity and the stability of the content as it loads. These metrics are based on real-world usage data (often called field data) and can help drive development of a better website experience.
To improve your page load speeds, optimize your website for images, scripts and caching. According to webpagetest.org, your website should score 90 (in the green) or better. Often, the number of plug-ins and how pages are laid out drastically effects site load time.
Interested in how your site is performing? Check out these resources:
You may be thinking ‘Why does page performance matter?’ Longer page load times have severe effects on bounce rates. For example:
- If page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the bounce rate increases 32%.
- If page load time increases from 1 second to 6 seconds, bounce rate increases by 106%.
When building websites, we focus on web performance for mobile and desktop by utilizing caching plug-ins to optimize image sizes and minimize page load times.
Do you need help with getting to the front of the line by optimizing your users’ site experience? Drop us a note below or connect with us @westcomm on LinkedIn.
