A website’s speed is the sort of thing a user likely won’t notice until they encounter snags or long loading times. When things are working properly and load times are minimized, users are free to navigate your website and get to where they need to be – provided you have coherent content and mapping.
At Snap Agency, we provide web development and strategy solutions for B2B companies looking to optimize their digital marketing presence. This post highlights the importance of efficient site loading times for the sake of generating quality leads and maintaining good rapport with partners.
Poor Performance Impacts SEO
Site speed is one of the primary measurements that search engines use to determine your site’s value for a user. Why? Because user experience is directly tied to measurable and interconnected factors – time spent on a page, linking, etc. – which help search engines rank site pages.
In other words, doing nothing to improve your slow site speed means gatekeepers like Google and Bing may not help you obtain new partners.
Your Visitor Values Their Time, Don’t Let Your Site Waste It
Odds are if they’re on your website, your visitor is circling the rim of doing business with you. Or, at the very least, they want to see what you’re about. Before we can talk about conversion rates on leads, we need to talk about a different kind of rate: bounce rate.
Bounce rate is a site performance measurement based on the percentage of users who leave a website after only viewing one page. The lower the percentage of users who move on to another page, the better. If your website has a bounce rate of 50% or lower, you’re doing well. Although you’ll want to aim for closer to 25%.
Why is bounce rate important here? Because if your site has long loading times—especially if that first page they visit has a long loading time—your visitor won’t stick around. They’ll leave and take their efforts elsewhere, a decision that may be interpreted via bounce rate.
Fewer Snags = Higher Conversion Rates
It stands to reason that if your site isn’t doing you any functional favors with its speed problems, your conversation rates will suffer. But more than that, your current leads and partners are also using your site.
You can have the best relationship imaginable with those whom you do business with, but once a flashy new partner comes along offering competitive rates with a better functioning (a.k.a. faster) website, you may find that relationship in jeopardy.
What Elements Influence Website Speed?
Picture your website as a gulf with several rivers of digital information flowing into it. The channel where these streams meet is limited. If there’s too much information, your website will become flooded. These influential factors (or streams) include:
- Website design theme
- Image resolution and size
- Overly complex site builds
- The site host and resource hosting locations
- The visitor’s internet service provider (ISP) or data provider
One practical way to view site-building (development, design, site mapping) for efficiency’s sake is to consider the gap between the many possibilities web builds have (slides, videos, interactive modules, etc.) and the internet capabilities of your visitors. Every year home and cellphone internet speeds get better, but that doesn’t mean all of your visitors have the best ISP or internet package.
The Solution = Consider Your User’s ISP Capabilities
So, a solution to user experience issues may be a matter of practicality: Do you really need all the slides and videos? Have you compressed the image files? Could you get rid of some embedded sources from external sites? Your web developers and design experts should know how to tackle these issues and give you a leg up on the competition.
How Do I Know If My Website Is Slow?
Here’s what you can do: find a page speed tester and drop a link to your site into their testing mechanism. There are free-to-use, trustworthy options out there. Google’s speed test is pretty painless if you want to go that route.
Site Performance Solutions for Manufacturers & Distributors
Of course, an audit of your site’s performance in efficiency and effectiveness will require much more than a speed test. That’s where we come in. Our developers and webmasters have decades of combined experience in providing digital solutions for manufacturers, distributors, and other B2B partners looking for site optimization.
Learn more with a quick call or use our contact form to get in touch.