There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to managing your accommodation site. You have to keep your listings up to date, process payments on time, and ensure every guest has a wonderful experience.
Unfortunately, all of that effort is wasted if your site doesn’t load quickly.
According to a 2016 report from Adobe, 41 percent of internet users will abandon a site if it takes too long to load. That’s a huge percentage of potential customers to lose.
Keep reading for the top 5 ways a slow loading page can do major damage to your bottom line.
5 Ways A Slow Loading Webpage Can Kill Your Business
1. If Your Page Doesn’t Load, Users Will Bounce
Most users have very little patience for a slow site. If they visit your accommodations page and it doesn’t show up almost immediately, they’ll bounce and visit a competitor instead.
In fact, most users will wait less than 3 seconds before they decide it’s not worth their time.
2. If Your Customers Stay, They’ll Think Less of Your Brand
Even if your customers do wait for your site to load, they will likely feel a little worse about the experience. They may put off their choice to book or scrap their plans altogether.
Remember, your slow site is taking up your customers’ precious time, and they won’t thank you for it.
3. Slow Loading Sites Feel Less Credible
This is especially important when you accept online payments. Your customers want to know that if they use your site, their reservation will be correct, their payment will go through, and their credit card information will stay secure.
A slow load time—especially during the checkout process—can make your customers questions your site’s credibility. If users don’t trust your brand, they’re unlikely to book.
4. Your Site Won’t Look How You Designed It
If your site’s speed is suffering, your customers won’t see the image you had in mind when you set up your site. Instead of the beautiful design, you paid for, they’ll see something half-loaded.
The best way to combat this problem is to design your site with load time in mind. Your images need to be optimized, your cache system should be on top of its game, and your design should be speed-friendly.
Whistler Premier does this by breaking up their different accommodation offerings onto new pages. Users are greeted with sleek, simple sections and invited to click to learn more about the type of rental they want to book.
5. SEO Suffers on Slow Sites
On top of everything else you need for a great SEO strategy, your site needs to load quickly. A slow load time can do major damage to your SEO rank.
After all, a slow site with a high bounce rate isn’t really offering a user-friendly experience.
Keep Your Accommodations Site up and Running with SiteUptime
At SiteUptime, we monitor your site to make sure it’s up and running when your customers need it. We send out alerts if we detect a problem and compile monthly analytics reports with everything you need to know about your site’s performance. Choose a plan today.
