Page load time is a major contributing factor to the bounce rate (page abandonment). The average searcher lacks time and patience to wait for a slow website. Some studies show that about half of all consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less and approximately 40% of consumers will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Speed is important enough that Google is now using site speed as an algorithmic ranking factor.
Page Load Time Statistics
We do not want to overload you with statistics, but site / page load times negatively impact your bottom line. The following data¹ supports the idea of time is money:
- 52% of online shoppers claim that quick page load times are important for their loyalty to a site.
- 14% will start shopping at a different site if page loads are slow.
- 23% will stop shopping or leave their computer.
- 64% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with their site visit will go somewhere else to shop next time.
- A faster website was sent 15% more traffic by Google, and Bing and Yahoo also sent more traffic.
- Many webmasters reported significant drops in traffic following Google’s introduction of site-speed into its algorithm.
- Almost half of all online consumers expressed a less positive perception of the company overall after a single bad experience.
- More than a third of those consumers who suffered a slow load time told others about their disappointing experience.
One second may seem insignificant, but when it comes to load time it may reduce your revenue by 50%! Get up to speed with a good content management system, clean theme, optimized images and caching your content. Contact an experienced search engine optimization specialist to maximize your ROI.
¹ Studies by akamai.com and gomez.com
