why speed matters for websites
There are many reasons why a fast website is a better website and many reasons why your website may be running slowly.
A website that displays quickly:
- Gets your website users to the information they need quicker
- Means that a visitor is less likely to get frustrated and go somewhere else
- Provides a positive impression of you through a positive online experience
- Gets better rankings in website search engines
- Scores higher when competing against other websites for Pay-Per-Click position on search engines
Reasons your website may be running slowly include:
- The quality of the server and network infrastructure of your Hosting company
- Poorly optimised pictures, images and other media files on your website
- Poorly optimised web code
- Too much data or too many images on a single web page
- Inefficient database query’s
- External data feeds or scripts, for example Third Party Advertising services
In the days before broadband web designers had to be both prudent and clever with their designs to deliver a fast Internet experience for website visitors. As broadband became the standard way to connect to the Internet, and more bandwidth became available, inevitably designers relaxed a little and websites with more media heavy elements took over. The good practices from a decade ago though are still as relevant today as they were back then, paying attention to the things that can impact your website speed will always reap benefits.
