One of the things IM NewsWatch has been working on is the speed of our site. We have used a number of techniques to improve our page load speed (and we are continuing to work on it) because we know that today’s site visitors are usually busy. They don’t want to wait around for a page to load.

We want our visitors to spend more time on our website, engage with us more, and leave us positive feedback on social media sites.

Informative content, an attractive site design, and engaging perspectives are, indeed, important factors that influence our customer satisfaction. However, none of them is as crucial as website speed.

Think this statement is an exaggeration?

Well, here are some facts assembled by hostingtribunal.com that prove its veracity beyond doubt.

When page load time increases from 1 sec to 6 sec, the bounce rate more than doubles; people just won’t tolerate the delay. When site page load time is 10 sec, the bounce rate goes even higher.

A delay of one second in page loading causes customer satisfaction to drop by 16%

52% of consumers say that website speed is crucial to their site loyalty and 44% of customers share a bad online experience with their friends

As you can see, slow page loading is bad news for every online business. However, for ecommerce sites, it is an absolute death knell because it significantly affects their sales.

Research shows that, for 51% of US online customers, slow speed is the main reason for abandoning a purchase. Another study reports that 43% of online shoppers who are unhappy with their online shopping experience will go to a competitor’s site next time.

No doubt consequences of slow speed are indeed grave, but it is also equally true that you stand to gain a lot by improving page load speed. For instance, did you know that average page load time is more than 9 seconds? That has a dramatic effect on the success of the site.

This dismal average load speed can be good for your business if you are noticeably better. Most of your competitors, if not all, are likely to have slow sites. If you can get your site to load quickly, where do you think their unhappy customers will go?

Of course, they will come to your site. So a quick, nimble site helps you not only retain your customers but also win your competitors’ customers.

A fast website offers many other important benefits as well. To learn about them and how top online businesses have benefited from speeding up their sites, check out this fact-filled infographic.

How Speed Affects Your Website

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