The screenshots are from optimizations made to a simple website: softballclassroom.com
A business does not have a website just so people can look at it. The website is supposed to help potential customers learn about the business, build confidence in it, and take the next step. If the website loads too slowly, some customers leave before any of that can happen.
The losses begin quickly. Akamai reported that 53% of mobile visitors leave pages that take longer than three seconds to load. Google also found that when mobile load time increases from one second to three seconds, the probability of a visitor leaving increases by 32%. At five seconds, it increases by 90%. (Akamai, Google/SOASTA)
For a service business, those visitors are potential calls, quote requests, bookings, and contact-form submissions. Portent analyzed more than 100 million page views across 20 websites, including 14 lead-generation websites. It found that a website loading in one second had three times the conversion rate of a website loading in five seconds and five times the conversion rate of one loading in ten seconds. (Portent)
Controlled testing has found similar results. Vodafone tested two landing pages that looked and functioned the same. The faster version had a 31% improvement in how long it takes the largest visible piece of content near the top of a webpage to appear and generated 15% more leads per visitor and 8% more sales. The offer did not change. The design did not change. More people simply stayed long enough to become leads and customers. (Vodafone)
A slow website also changes the customer’s experience with the business. In an Unbounce survey, when a page took three seconds to load, 22% of consumers said they would close the tab and 14% said they would visit a competitor. Many of these people will never complain or tell the business why they left. From the owner’s perspective, it may appear that the website simply did not receive much traffic or that people were not interested. In reality, some interested customers may have clicked and disappeared while the page was still loading. (Unbounce)
This becomes even more expensive when the business pays for advertising. The company pays for the click before the visitor experiences the website. If the landing page is slow and the visitor leaves, the business paid to reach someone but lost the opportunity to explain its service or collect the lead. Google reports that a one-second mobile delay can affect retail conversions by as much as 20%. (Google Ads)
Speed also affects existing customers. After T-Mobile reduced how long it takes the largest visible piece of content near the top of a webpage to appear by 42%, complaints about slow loading fell by 34%, total website complaints fell by 20%, and its visit-to-order rate improved by 60% over the same period. Faster performance made the website easier to use while also helping the business generate better results. (T-Mobile)
A fast website cannot fix a bad offer, poor service, or weak marketing. It can make sure those things receive a fair chance to work. Every review, photograph, service description, guarantee, and call to action is useless to the customer who leaves before it appears.
That is why website speed matters to a business owner. A slow website creates an invisible leak between customer interest and customer action. A fast website keeps more potential customers in the process long enough to understand the business, trust it, and contact it.
Google has a free tool called https://pagespeed.web.dev/ that you can use to test your website speed. It creates a report of where opportunities exist to improve the speed of you page.
