Have you ever been impatient with a slow-loading webpage? If it took too long to load, you probably moved on to another website to find the answer, product, or service you were looking for. Your online customers make the same choices.
If your webpages take too long to load, then customers will choose your competitors instead of you. You may be inadvertently narrowing your customer pool because of slow webpages. It's time to consider backend optimization as a part of your overall marketing strategy.
Backend optimization is how you make your website load quickly. Granted, a user's data connection and internet service affects load time. However, you can make changes to the nature of your own website to minimize the effects of a user's poor data or internet connection.
Here are a couple of questions to consider as you think about optimizing your website:
Backend optimization requires advanced technical knowledge. It can be daunting to approach it. So, why should you even bother?
Recent research from section.io shows that slow-loading web pages have a higher bounce rate than fast-loading websites. (The “bounce rate” is the percentage of customers who stop using a website.) The study found that the bounce rate for a webpage that loaded in 2 seconds was 9.6%. The bounce rate for a webpage that took 7 seconds to load was 32%. That's a big difference. You don't want to lose 32% of your potential customers.
The study also found that website users visited more pages when websites loaded faster. Website visitors viewed more that twice as many webpages from the same website when loading time was 2 seconds as they did when it was 8 seconds. You work hard to develop quality products, services, and content. Make sure that visitors to your website don't lose patience with slow load times.
Another section i.o study found a correlation between number of items in a shopping cart and webpage loading time. Faster websites led to more orders and purchases. Boost your business’s revenue through backend optimization will help your business increase sales.
As a small business owner, you want to keep the customers you attract and boost your revenue. From the research discussed above, backend optimization is a powerful way to attract and keep customers that also positively affects your business's revenue.
Backend optimization is technical. A good understanding of computer science and the nuts and bolts of website building is an important first step. There are a couple of things you can do to make your website load faster. Most people would probably decide that backend optimization is website magic and hire master website wizards.
Sources: "How Page Load Time Affects Bounce Rate and Page Views." Roxana Elliott. August 2017.
"How a leading online beauty store increased sales." Roxana Elliot. August 2016.
