Data from the Speed Awareness Month website has revealed that slow websites cost the U.S. ecommerce market over $500 billion every year while a recent Econsultancy study has revealed that for every one second delay in your site loading speed, conversions will go down by 7%.
Here are some other findings from the Econsultancy study:
- 47% of people expect a website to load in under two seconds and 40% of people will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
- 14% of people will start shopping at a different site if page loads are slow and 23% of people will stop shopping or even walk away from their computer
- 64% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with their site visit will go somewhere else to shop next time and 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience
- At peak traffic times, more than 75% of online consumers left for a competitor’s site rather than suffer delays
- Around 50% of people have a negative perception of a company overall after a single bad experience and more than a third told others about their disappointing experience
Another revealing study was recently conducted by Google and here are some main findings:
- 67% of people are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly website compared to a non-mobile friendly website
- 50% of people will use a site less than they used to if the site is not mobile-friendly
- 48% of people are frustrated and annoyed when they visit a website that is not mobile-friendly and 52% said that a bad mobile experience makes them less likely to engage with a company
With the above findings from Google and Econsultancy, two things are instantly clear; building a successful business isn’t always about increasing your marketing budget. In fact, in some cases you’re flushing your marketing budget down the drain if your site is not catering to people who are coming to your site. With that said, this article will be focusing on two aspects of optimizing your small business website for optimal performance; mobile and website speed.
5 Tips to Benefit from the Explosive Mobile Growth
Here are a few ways to capitalize on the explosive growth mobile has been experiencing lately:
1. Have a responsive design
The best way to benefit from the growing number of mobile internet users is by having a responsive design; this way, irrespective of where people are trying to access your website, they’ll get a version that adapts to their device.
2. Create a mobile app for your site
Most people have their mobile devices with them at all times; when they commute, at their working place and everywhere they go. By creating a mobile app for your site and encouraging people to install it, you can get people to have you with them everywhere they go. If a lot of people install and review your mobile app, you can also benefit from exposure from the mobile app stores and directories.
3. Create special resources to encourage mobile users
A lot of people are going mobile and recent data has revealed that mobile computers will be more commonplace than desktop computers by 2014. Your business can grow significantly not only by embracing this trend but by encouraging it. Start spending more marketing budget on mobile and create special resources just for mobile users so as to encourage people to use the mobile version of your site.
4. Launch special promotions just for mobile users
By running special offers and promotions just for mobile users and by letting your mobile users realize this, they’ll feel validated and as a result more likely to buy.
5. Regularly survey and get feedback from mobile users
You’ll gain more loyal mobile customers and fans by making them realize that you care about them and one of the best ways to do this is by regularly surveying them; you could ask a variety of questions but it’s important to let them realize that your survey is exclusive to them and that the purpose is to improve their mobile experience.
5 Ways to Make Your Website Faster
You can double traffic and sales to your website by making it slightly faster; here are a few ways to make your website faster.
1. Combine your website layout images with CSS sprites
Your website layout is made of various images and each image results in a new server request your visitors’ browser has to make; CSS sprites can combine multiple images into one, limit the number of server requests made and as a result improve site speed.
2. Reduce the number of plugins and add-ons used on your website
Plugins and addons slow down a website; the more you use, the slower your website.
3. Avoid having too many tracking codes installed
Each tracking code you install is a new request your visitors’ browser has to make, thereby making your website slower.
4. Limit the number of files you host on external fasters
When you host your files on another server, this increases the number of servers your visitors’ browser has to connect to and as a result makes your site slower.
5. Make use of Content Delivery Networks
A Content Delivery Network or CDN is a group of connected servers hosted in various locations in the world; in other word, a CDN could have server in dozens of countries and then your site will be hosted on one CDN; that way, irrespective of where people are visiting your website from they’ll be served the version closest to them.
Tobi is a professional marketer that specializes in helping people get the best WordPress Hosting.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
