Who here remembers the "good old days" of the Internet? Dialing up, blocking off the phone line, and then waiting minutes for web pages laden with chintzy animated graphics to load.
Those days are long-gone. These days, we have a need for speed when it comes to loading websites.
Here are some eye-opening stats about website loading speeds/performance and customer satisfaction (taken from Hubspot.com)
* 79% of customers who report dissatisfaction with a site's performance are less likely to buy from that site again.
* 64% of smartphone users expect pages to load in less than 4 seconds.
* Almost 50% of customers expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds or less.
* Ever 1 second delay in loading means a 7% reduction in conversions.
Furthermore, in the new Google "mobile first" index, page speed is an official ranking factor (beyond any effect that slow loading actually has on visitor interaction, conversion rates etc).
Basically, if your site is low to load then you are leaving money on the table.
People are impatient - they expect immediate page loading.
There is literally no downside to having a zippy site that loads quickly (apart from the time and potential expense required to get it right).
There is lots that can be done to improve your site speed - far more than can be written in a simple blog post.
However, for starters I recommend you run your site through the Google Page Speed Insights tool and see what recommendations come up:
Talk to your site developer about speeding up your site as well - or leave a comment below and I'll try to help you out.
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