So, you’ve spent tons of time on your business’s new website, carefully crafted the content, and even optimized it for SEO. But, for whatever reason, you’re not making money even though you know the market for your product is there.
Have you considered the speed of your website or server to be the problem?
In this article, you’ll learn how to determine the speed of your website, how a slow server kills your conversion rate, and how a faster server generates more revenue for your online business.
The first step you should take if you think your website is slow is to test your website’s speed. Website speed refers to how long it takes from a hosting server receiving a request (i.e. a visitor clicking on your website from a Google results page) and displaying the website on the visitor’s screen.
There are tons of free options available on the web through which you can test your website. Simply Google “test website speed,” and select a test site.
If you worry about your server’s reliability after using a speed test, you can choose to change hosting sites or set up a website monitoring service. These services alert you whenever your website slows down too much or goes offline.
Having a slow server and a slow website, by consequence, can damage your online business in many ways.
A slow website deters customers because people tend to be impatient when it comes to slow loading times. Impatient customers leaving your site signals to search engines that you have a high bounce rate.
Having a high bounce rate causes your search result ranking to drop. This makes it harder for potential customers to find your business organically.
Your slow website can also indicate to a visitor that your business is not reliable if you cannot afford to host your site on a better server. This creates distrust between you and your potential customers who will end up shopping on your competitor’s sites.
Did you know that a 1-second delay in your website’s load time can lead to a decrease of 7% in conversions? Luckily, that precious 7% is something you can easily recover by investing in a faster server.
If you are using a shared hosting site, that is your first easily addressable problem. Shared hosting sites typically host upwards of 1000 sites on their server.
All those websites are competing for the server’s resources. Unfortunately, a website with a heavy code base can use up the necessary server space for other websites on the server.
The next step up from shared hosting is a virtual private server (VPS). VPS is most commonly used by small to medium sized businesses. A VPS costs a bit more than a shared hosting server, but it means you have access to a server of no more than 20 other websites.
Switching to a VPS will help reallocate resources to your website and increase the speed. This increased speed will make your website load faster, will keep your customers’ trust, and increase your revenue.
If you know your website is slow, there is no time to lose to increase its speed and performance. In many cases, a faster server will solve your loading time issues and bring your potential customers back.
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