Speed up Web Page Loading Using Google Page Speed

Website loading time is one of the most important performance elements of a website. It has been said, according to a study at Peer1, that there is a "loss of one third of the visitors who abandon the site" after four seconds of website loading time.  

Graph: % of visitors retained vs. Website loading time:

What is interesting is that there are almost no visitors interested in waiting for your website to completely load after 25-30 seconds. Loss of visitors translates to losses everywhere, including sales, other income revenues, subscribers, readers, etc.  

There has also been some buzz in the SEO community that "page speed" may become a future search engine ranking factor in Google. 

This is how critical website loading time is. Instead of drastically focusing on other aspects such as SEO, any smart webmaster should FIRST focus on improving website loading times before trying to solve other problems.  

Here is a case study:

Website average loading time: six seconds 

• Average monthly visitors: 1000
  
• Conversion rate: 1%
  
• Average profit per sale: $10  
  
• Visitors retained at 6 seconds (estimate): 50%
  
• Visitor loss due loading time: 100% - 50%: 50%
  
• Visitors retained: 1000 x 50% = 500
  
• Average conversions: 500 x 0.01 = 5
  
• Monthly profit (average) = 5 x $10 = $50

 Website average loading time: less than five seconds 

• Visitors retained: 1000 (no visitor loss due to slow website loading)
  
• Average conversions = 1000 x 0.01= 10
  
• Monthly profit (average) = 10 x $10 = $100  

As you can see from the above example, it is possible to double website profit simply by improving website loading times.