Why should website optimization be a priority? The answer is simple: for user experience. You want to make your website visitors happy. If a visitor must sit there and wait for a web page to finish loading, that is an unpleasant experience. Unpleasant never equals good. In today’s on-the-go society people want information, and they want it fast. They do not want to wait around for it. If your website or specific pages of your website are slow to load, you can expect visitors to leave.
But you also need to make Google happy. This is equally as important to providing a good user experience for your visitors. Page loading speed has been used as a ranking factor for desktop websites since 2010. It also became a ranking factor for mobile websites in 2018.
Page loading speed can dramatically impact your website’s Search Engine Optimization and bounce rate. But what is a “bounce rate?” A bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who enter your website and then leave rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. If your website has a high bounce rate, your website will not be converting visits to leads.