There is no shortage of options when it comes to web hosting these days. Starting a new blog, a website for your business or even an online store is getting easier and more affordable thanks to remarkable hosting options we now have on the market. That said, not all hosting services are equally good.
There are still a number of aspects to consider when choosing a hosting service to use. Speed and overall performance are the two most important ones to review before you sign up for an account. Speed is important in today’s market for a number of reasons. We are going to review those reasons in this article.
Better User Retention
The first and foremost reason why speed matters is user retention. Users have more websites to visit, which means they now have more options and will settle for nothing but the best user experience. The only way you can provide visitors with the information they need – and get them to stay on your site – is by having a site that loads quickly.
3 is the magic number in this case; the best websites must be able to display their contents in 3 seconds or fewer. Visitors have higher chances of hitting Back or moving on to the next site they find in search results when your site doesn’t load quickly enough.
There are only so many things you can do to optimize your site for a good page loading time. At the end of the day, you need a capable hosting service to support your highly optimized site. This is why choosing a hosting service with good performance and speed is essentially important.
Improved User Experience
User retention is not the only reason why speed matters. You would want users to spend more time on your site and browse through more pages. This means providing them with the best user experience possible, allowing them to jump from page to page as smoothly as possible. Again, speed is a big factor that will influence user experience.
There are optimization tricks you can use to improve user experience. Caching static elements of the site and incorporating lazy-loading across the site can help create that ultra-smooth browsing experience. A capable server with good speed will further enhance that experience and set your site apart from the competition.
SEO Advantages
Speaking about user experience or UX, Google and other search engines are now taking user experience seriously. It is one of the determining metrics used to rank your site. The better your site’s UX is, the higher it will rank in search results.
Even Google has said that speed is an important factor. The company’s testing tool, Google PageSpeed, provide insights on ways you can improve your site’s speed in general. Tricks such as minimizing CSS and JS files can help speed up a site by as much as 40% when implemented correctly. Server response time and the overall speed of your server will help boost that number further.
Based on several testing, servers need to respond to requests in under 200ms for an ideal performance. There are a number of things that can lower a server’s response time, including slow database queries and resource starvation. You need a capable hosting service to beat these issues.
More Sales
Past studies have shown that faster-loading ecommerce stores have better conversion rates. The combination of better UX and good, fluid browsing experience will help potential customers feel more comfortable about making purchases. You also don’t need to deal with dropped carts when everything loads quickly and correctly.
Even top brands like Amazon are focusing more on speed. A case study conducted by Amazon revealed that reducing page loading time by 1 second resulted in a 2% improvement on conversion rate. For a relatively new online store with an average traffic of 1,000 visitors a day, that 2% translates to 20 more sales every day.
The actual impact of speed to the bottom line of an online store makes investing in speed and a capable server well worth it. Shopzilla, another prominent player in the ecommerce market, also revealed that boosting their page loading time to under 3 seconds allow them to grow their revenue by 12%.
Speed Matters
There are still several other reasons “why speed matters”. For example, having a fast server means updating your site is easier no matter where you are. You can upload product images or post new travel stories to your blog without having to wait a long time.
What’s important is realizing how much speed matters. With hundreds of new sites being launched every day and the market being more competitive than ever, speed can be that extra competitive advantage you need to succeed. Find a capable hosting service to support your site, complete the necessary optimization steps and you can have a site that loads quickly every time.
