Once upon a time, web page load speed was something only webmasters and hopeless perfectionists cared about. If it was really horrible, you’d tell the web team to find the problem and fix it, but otherwise, slow was OK – the internet provider would take the blame anyway.
That was then
But things have changed. Anyone responsible for or who cares about online marketing results should quickly develop an intense interest in how fast your organization’s web site loads. Here’s why:
- Your visitors care – stable, nearly ubiquitous high speed connections are now the norm. When there’s a page load problem, its no longer assumed to be the internet provider. Users are going to blame the site owner. Site visitors have become accustomed to web sites that load quickly. If yours doesn’t – they leave.
- Google Cares – In April, Google announced that it was adding page load speed as one of its signals for search engine results rank. You can read the details here. Needless to say, if Google cares, you should too.
- Most search engines care too – Yahoo thinks enough about it to provide a tool for Firefox to measure your page speed (YSlow). If Google and Yahoo care, you can bet Bing (Microsoft) cares too.
- Mobile is gaining importance – If user experience and search engine results weren’t enough, mobile phones are gaining prominence as a source of site visits. While these devices and networks have improved remarkably over the last several years, they still rely on a fairly limited bandwidth and processor to deliver you content – it will affect your user experience – see point 1.
Check it out
Don’t run out and buy a stopwatch – there are some tools that can help you assess your page load speed and fix some common issues:
Google Webmaster Tools – If you haven’t registered your site with Google, do it now. Along with an abundance of useful information Google will provide you its page load speed experience. Browse down to the labs section (left hand column), expand it, and click on “site performance.” Google will show you the history of your page load speed. As you can see below , the effort we spent in March improving our page load speed produced results:
Why About Marketing's Page Load Speed
If you use the Firefox browser there are add-ons that will provide you with not only a “grade,” but also detailed information on issues impacting your page load speed – YSlow from Yahoo! and Page Speed from Google. Both require the Firebug add-on work.
UPDATE: Google has released a long-awaited web based tool to assess your page’s speed. Very simple to use and gives a list of specific issues.
If you can’t decipher the issues and recommendations provided by any of the tools, contact us – we’d be glad to help you assess your status.
Photo credit: RBerteig
