The Critical Impact of Website Speed on Business Success

As commerce continues to migrate online, there are many, many variables for business owners to consider. From website appearance to search engine rankings, the competition is fierce and continual innovation is essential. Among these factors, however, is an overlooked metric that is entirely in the control of the website host: website loading speed. Not only does this factor dramatically affect user experience, it is also taken into account to a considerable degree by search engine crawlers. This blog will examine the evidence on why business owners should take time to consider how their websites are hosted to optimise page loading speed, and will explore the options that can be used to guarantee success.

How Loading Time Affects User Experience and Conversion Rates
The average load time for webpages on the internet is 3.21 seconds. It seems pedantic to go to hundredths of a second in our measurements (why not just say 3 seconds), but, amazingly, humans appear to be able to distinguish page load times, and adjust their behaviour, dependent on latency changes of 100ms. Over a decade ago, Amazon famously found that every 100ms of latency on their listings cost them a full 1% in sales. In 2006, Google published that a .5 second delay in search page generation time dropped traffic by 20%. It is no secret that our attention spans are getting shorter, so we must face the fact that these statistics are likely magnified today. It should be evident, therefore, that businesses should be doing everything in their power to get their page load times down.

2 seconds is considered the benchmark for what is acceptable for webpage loading- don’t believe me, Google’s John Mueller attests that this is the upper limit that most visitors will be willing to wait. This isn’t just a magic number, however; bounce rate (the % of users who leave a page without taking an action, even scrolling) has been shown to skyrocket directly after this point.

Google, and the other search engines, are well aware of this fact, so they make a conscious effort to penalise sites that take too long to load. Include too many videos on your landing page? Expect it to fall dramatically in the rankings if you don’t adjust your hosting accordingly.

Understanding Hosting Options to Improve Website Speed
When it comes to website hosting, it is the beginning the real nitty-gritty of technical jargon. Most websites will be on a shared-hosting system, where a single server will have multiple websites redirected to it, and will be serving all of these clients simultaneously. Inefficient as this is, it is extremely cost effective, so is generally the first port of call.

However, there comes a point where there are simply too many requests or sites for a single site to manage. Imagine a small coffee shop, with customers ordering their coffees from their seats. On a shared-hosting system, there is only one barista, who is making each different type of coffee and delivering it to the customer. The next tier in hosting involves Virtual Private Servers, which splits the server, with each split dealing with a single site- now, there are multiple baristas who each deal specifically with customers ordering one specific type of coffee; one deals with espressos, one deals with lattes etc. Whilst one barista might get busy at times, this will not affect the workload of the other workers, so, dropping our metaphor, there is no cross-site impact. All of this can be done on a single server, so this is not any more expensive, though it does require a degree of technical understanding.

Above this level are the expensive options, generally reserved for larger businesses or sites with extensive catalogues expecting large amounts of traffic. The simple option is to have a server dedicated to a single site, but there will come a point, as the site grows, where it will be simply unfeasible for a single server to deal with thousands of users. Cloud computing firms bridge the gap here, offering scalability and reliability at a scale that can’t be matched. Many cloud computing services are able to manage sudden surges in traffic without affecting speed, making them extremely useful for sites that experience drastic changes in usage. However, this option is not for the faint of heart, as cloud computing providers will often charge by the minute for hosting, which can really add up over time.

Practical Steps to Enhance Your Website’s Loading Speed
Understanding and improving your website's loading speed is crucial not only for enhancing user experience but also for boosting your overall online performance. Are you aware of how your site measures up? Google’s free tool, PageSpeed Insights (Try it here), can help by providing detailed insights into your page loading times and highlighting any performance issues.

While automated tools offer a good starting point, sometimes the necessary adjustments require deeper technical expertise. This is where TearabyteSS can assist. Our web hosting services are tailored to meet the unique challenges your website faces. Equipped with proprietary activity checking software, our engineers are alerted to speed issues within 30 seconds, ensuring your website always operates at peak efficiency. Are you ready to take your site’s performance to the next level? Contact TearabyteSS today to discover how we can help you stay ahead of the competition by optimizing your site’s speed.