As a website owner, trying to pay attention to the various components responsible for ultimately creating an engaging, high-ranking and profitable site can feel like trying to cross the Atlantic in a paddleboat.
To put it plainly, website management is hard work.
Even though there are dozens, if not hundreds, of individual elements that must work together to cultivate a productive digital environment, some are much more important than others.
If we were to rank these components based on its impact on site visibility/usability for both visitors and Google, page load speed would be right at the top. So it’s important to ask yourself, is my website slow?
Few elements are capable of hindering not only organic traffic, but overall revenue to such an incredible extent as website speed. In fact, even if your website slows by a mere 1-second, it can directly result in a whopping 11% loss in total traffic.
To make matters worse, a 2-second delay doubles this to a total loss of a staggering 22% – if you use your site as a form of income, you can only imagine how detrimental this can be to your bottomline.
While we could go on about the negative influence of sluggish website speed, this information is useless if you aren’t sure whether your website is slow or not. So how fast should a website load? How can I tell what my site speed is? Is my website slow or fast?
The biggest misconception regarding website speed is notification. If you think you’ll instantly notice a detrimental slowdown to web page load times, you better think again. As mentioned earlier, managing a website is a ton of work.
While bogged down by content creation, design upgrades or managing the many other components of your enterprise, the efficiency and performance of your site could be slowly degrading. Unless you employ a 24/7 website monitoring tool, you likely won’t notice its sluggish performance till it’s too late.
Don’t let this happen to you. Ask the question, “Is my website slow?” and continue asking it as the internet continually gets faster and faster.
Keep reading to uncover not only the most common signs of a slow website, but how you can confirm and correct this potentially costly scenario.
#1 – Bounce Rate is Bouncing Too High!
Millions of website owners fail to recognize their sluggish website simply because they skim over their site analytics.
If you are only looking at incoming traffic quantity, you’re only getting a skewed view of your actual performance. For many, seeing thousands of incoming hits is enough to assume their site is doing dandy!
Here’s a question: what’s your bounce rate?
Speed matters to visitors. Yes, they may enter your site, but if its pages take too long to load, they won’t stick around.
Ultimately, incoming traffic means nothing if your bounce rate translates to a 5 second visit.
If this metric is too high, your website is 100% underperforming in terms of speed. Consider your bounce rate when asking, “Is my website slow or not?”
#2 – Social Media is Buzzing, But Traffic is Silent
Your social media followers share your content, engage in debates and consistently proclaim the awesomeness of your business.
But your incoming traffic from social media and search engines is as busy as one of the few remaining shopping malls sprinkled throughout the country. In other words, your website remains quiet even though your business/brand is popular.
While you may actually be receiving visitors through social media and other outreach platforms, if your site is sluggish, the bulk of these potential customers/followers don’t stay long enough for your analytics to even know they came.
So, what’s the deal? Yep, you guessed it: slow website speeds.
#3 – “Wait, we have a mobile site?” Lack of Mobile-First Optimization
When asking, is my website slow or not, you may only be thinking of browser speeds. If you aren’t hyper-focused on optimizing your mobile website, prepare for many months or years of underwhelming traffic.
Sure, your desktop site may be as fast as a jack rabbit after eating a handful of caffeine pills, but this means nothing if your mobile site is slow.
Starting in 2018, Google is rolling out one of the most significant algorithm updates in recent history: Mobile-First Indexing.
Essentially, this means the performance/quality of your mobile site is the primary factor used to determine SERP ranking. Still think letting your mobile site tend to itself is a good idea?
If you’re baffled by the lack of user engagement or organic traffic even after you’ve fully optimized your desktop website, the culprit is almost certainly related to a sluggish mobile site.
Knowledge Is POWER – Website Speed Testing Tool
Here’s your ultimate goal:
Never experience any of the aforementioned.
But, unless you have a staff of trained administrators and IT professionals, how can you possibly perform your daily maintenance tasks and monitor/safeguard website speed?
The solution isn’t a miracle, its simply knowing how to hack the system.
In many ways, avoiding negative consequences of slow website load times is only achieved by staying current on website health and performance. And, for many of us, the only way to accomplish this is with an efficient, easy and accurate website speed testing tool.
In terms of analysis quality, cost-effective (i.e., free) and overall efficiency, few performance testing tools match the quality and ease of the Dotcom-Monitor Website Speed Testing Tool.
Without diving into too many details, this advanced analytical platform dives deep into the various elements of both your frontend and backend infrastructure. Speed tests can be performed in a real browser environment from 25 geographical locations.
This comprehensive website speed report is not only 100% free, but delivers a complete waterfall chart detailing specific on-page elements and its influence on overall website speed.
Don’t let your busy schedule, budget or experience-level hinder the success and value of your website any longer. Definitely check out this tool and experience the effortlessness of advanced technology.
