Why should you care that it takes longer to download your website?

Don't lose your customers, just because they can't wait for your site to load!

As I have been interning at Pixel Light, a digital strategy agency, I got a chance to write one blog for them about how the heavy graphics and multimedia on the website nowadays affect the page-load time, which in turn, also affect the level of click-through rate as well as conversion rate. 

Online commerce businesses could lose around $4 billion a year just because their potential customers cannot wait for the website to load. Compared to what it did in the past, many consumer websites now take up to 20% longer to download! 

Why should your company care? Here are more reasons to give you a hint!

Google’s search ranking – In 2011, Google has included page speed in their search ranking algorithms. Therefore, if your page takes long time to download, this will affect AdWords Landing Page quality and the overall SEO performance – In other word, there is less likely for your page to appear on the top search result, which refers to less awareness, fewer potential visitors and less potential sales.

Visitors’ experience – One second of delay can lead to fewer page views (11%), lower satisfaction (16%), and lower conversion rates (7%). In fact, 2 second is the time that almost 50% of visitors expect the page to finish downloading.

Company’s sales and bottom line – If your potential customers lose their patience while waiting for the page to download, three-fourth of them are less likely to visit the page again and around 45% of them will tell their friends about their bad experience. Hence, this affects the company’s sales, bottom line as well as page’s popularity not only in the short term, but also in the long term.

If you're interested to read the full article, you can read it from the following link that I wrote for the company:  http://www.pixellight.com.au/blog/catch-them-they-are-gone


Have you ever closed the website before they finish downloading?
OR.... Does it depend on what the website is about?
(For university's website, surely, you can wait for it to load if you need to submit your assignment online!)