If you’ve read articles about web design and search engine optimization (SEO) before, you probably know that page load speed is a huge factor in attracting users to your site. You’ve no doubt heard again and again how vital it is to make your website load quickly.
And that’s a very true statement — you should do all you can to optimize your page speeds. But why? What makes site speed so important — what does it help you with, and what happens if you don’t optimize it?
We’re here to help you answer those questions with the help of some top site speed statistics. Keep reading to find out more about how critical your page speeds are to the success of your marketing, and check out this video for a general overview of why page speed matters.
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10 page speed statistics to know
It’s not simply one person’s opinion that your site speeds are important. On the contrary, that statement is backed up by countless studies. Here are 10 of the page speed statistics that those studies have produced!
1. The average website takes around 15 seconds to load on mobile devices.
If you had to guess the average page load speed, you probably wouldn’t guess 15 seconds. But that’s exactly what it is, at least on mobile devices. Don’t think that means your site should take 15 seconds to load, though. While 15 seconds may be the average, it’s also unbelievably slow, as we’ll soon see.
The other point to note here is that mobile devices tend to be far slower than computers or even tablets. That means you’ll want to put an extra focus on page speed for the mobile version of your site.
2. The average page load speed among sites ranking on page one of Google is 1.65 seconds.
This statistic shows the flip side of the previous one. Like we said above, while 15 seconds is the overall average, it’s definitely not good.
If you actually want to have a shot at ranking on the first page of Google, you need your site to be much, much faster — around one or two seconds, specifically. That’s because page speed has a significant impact on Google SEO.
3. 83% of online users expect websites they visit to load in three seconds or less.
We just looked at how fast your site has to load to have a shot at ranking on page one of Google. But even without considering Google, you still want your site to load within three seconds. Otherwise, you’re risking losing out on a lot of traffic — which brings us to our next page speed statistic.
4. 40% of online users will abandon a website that takes longer than three seconds to load.
This site speed stat builds off the previous one, showing that a sizeable percentage of users won’t even bother to stick around if they have to wait more than three seconds. These users will hit the “back” button before the page has even loaded.
This stat is important, because it shows that if you don’t take your page speeds seriously, you’ll end up losing out on a huge portion of your potential traffic.
5. Pages that take only one or two seconds to load have an average bounce rate of 9%, but pages that take five seconds to load have an average bounce rate of 38%.
Bounce rate — the percentage of site visitors who leave immediately after arriving — is heavily influenced by page speed. In fact, a mere three extra seconds of loading can cause your bounce rate to shoot up by nearly 30%.
6. Nearly 70% of users say that an online retailer’s site speed has an impact on how willing they are to buy from that retailer.
If you sell products online, it’s extra important to have fast page load speeds. You want people to visit your website and buy from you there, but as this site speed stat shows, many people will be discouraged from making a purchase if your site loads slowly.
7. 64% of online shoppers who have a poor user experience on a website will go find a different store to shop at.
We just saw how people might be less likely to buy from you due to slow page speeds. But most of those people will go a step further — not only will they be less likely to buy from you, but they’ll actually hop straight over to one of your competitors to buy from them instead.
8. Half of online users surveyed say they’d prefer to miss out on animation and video if it meant getting faster load times.
When you’re building a website, it can become easy to assume that flashier animations and engaging videos will help draw users in. And that’s often true. However, be careful how much you do it. If you rely too much on videos and animations, it can drastically slow down your site.
As this stat shows, users prefer faster load times to videos and animations. So, if it comes down to a choice between the two, definitely prioritize page speed.
9. For each second of additional page load time, conversion rates decrease by an average of 2.11%.
We’ve established that it’s best to have page speeds of around one or two seconds, but it might not seem like a big deal if your load times are only a second or two over. However, as this stat shows, even a single second can cost you a significant number of conversions.
10. 44% of online shoppers share negative website experiences with other people.
Last on our list of page speed stats is that not only do slow page speeds affect people who visit your website, but they also affect people who haven’t even visited it yet. That’s because people who go to your site and get annoyed with slow speeds will likely tell other people about it, discouraging those people from visiting to start with.
Needless to say, this significantly hurts your sales, so it’s one more reason to improve your page speeds.
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Get help optimizing your page speeds with WebFX
The above site speed statistics have made it clear just how vital fast page speeds are. But you may be struggling with how to make your site run faster. If that’s the case, no worries — you can simply partner with WebFX.
At WebFX, our site speed team has more than 25 years of experience improving page speeds. In fact, we can also help you optimize your SEO as a whole so you’ll rank higher in Google search results and attract more traffic to your website.
To get started with us, just call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!
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