Page Speed And Your Business : A Saviour Or A Silent Killer?

Google has always taken into account a bevy of factors when it comes to ranking their search results. If you stop and consider, some obvious judging criteria will come to mind. For example, content of the Web page, it’s authenticity, it’s relevance or lack thereof and it’s probable influence on the masses.

But back in 2010, Google adopted a slightly different approach and has intentionally been very cryptic about the details of its newly reformed policy. Google announced that page speed from now on would have an impact on search rankings and this announcement has since proved to be an absolute game changer. No one wants to be penalised by Google!

What is page speed and how is it measured?

Page speed is basically the time a visitor has to spend or rather waste waiting for a page to load completely. Or if you want the textbook definition, it is the time that your mobile browser takes to receive the first byte of information from the web server.

To rank highly in mobile search, the faster your companies webpages load, the better. Page loading speed is just one of more than two hundred factors affecting Google rankings, however because Google is so fixed on ensuring web user experince, they have determined that load speed is major ranking factor.

In an era where time is money, speed is essential.

A few seconds can make all the difference to your potential sales when it comes to the rivalry between you and your competitor. According to a survey by Akamai and Gomez.com almost 50 percent of website visitors expected a page to load within 2 seconds. And if it didn’t, they simply abandoned it! This loss is magnified as human tendency urges them to warn their friends, families and colleagues against accessing the poorly performing site again.

World leading shopping site, Amazon.com claims that every hundred millisecond increase in website loading time equals a one percent depreciation in its buyers.In the age of unlimited wifi, hotspots and other forms of Internet access, we often forget that unlimited bandwith may not always be an option. We are also in the century of smartphones; and limited bandwidth is a reality we are often forced to face. Also we are compelled to deal with the fact that the traffic on cellular networks is growing at an astoundingly rapid pace. Website owners can’t always assume that their user has a high end device with great connectivity or the speed of an office LAN connection or home wifi network. Also theoretical connectivity and actual connectivity are two very different things keeping in mind conditions change from time to time.

Smartphones may have the tendency or inherent capability to load sites with tons of images and add ons. But if you want don’t want an annoyed user, speed and performance are a necessary metric while designing mobile friendly sites. Heavy sites are a huge no no. So ask again … does page speed really have that much of an impact? It really does without a doubt or question in mind. After all, every second of a visitor’s time wasted deprives the site owner of the pleasure of his/her own productivity!