Now that you have created your website, it’s time to run it and have it fulfill its purpose. Some people state that creating a website is a piece of cake, the real work starts when you run it and convert visitors into leads. In this article, we will be discussing how website performance affects conversion rate. Without further ado let’s dive into the details, but first, for those who are novices in the world of website building, let’s discuss what website conversion rates are.
What is Website Conversion Rate?
Website conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on a website. Through this action, they go from mere visitors to customers or leads. Take an e-commerce site displaying baby products as an example, a visitor converts when they decide to purchase the products from the website. If you receive 100 customers, and 3 of them ended up buying products then your website conversion rate is 3%. However, conversion isn’t all about buying products, visitors can also convert by downloading an e-book, signing up for a newsletter or just clicking through to the next page of the website.
This should be kept in mind that website traffic and conversion rate aren’t the same thing. The conversion rate of a webpage can go down even if traffic surges, or the traffic can remain stagnant as the conversion rate increases or decreases.
Effect of Website Speed on Conversion Rate
Website speed also known as web performance refers to how speedily or quickly a website fully loads. Countless studies show that website speed has a massive impact on conversion rate. Therefore, the more quickly your website loads the more are the chances of a visitor responding positively and buying products.
| Pagespeed | Conversion rate |
| 2.4 seconds | 1.9% conversion rate |
| 3.3 seconds | 1.5% conversion rate |
| 4.2 seconds | <1% conversion rate |
| 5.7 seconds + | < 0.6% conversion rate |
Even though at a glance these numbers don’t look impressive, however, trust us when we say that a minute increase in your conversion will have a wondrous impact on your revenue. Take an e-commerce webshop as an example that generates a revenue of $10 million per year, now if the conversion rate jumps to 1.5% that will result in a $150,000 increase in revenue.
Therefore, the quicker your load time the more will be the conversion rate. The reason for this is deeply rooted within the CNS of human beings, as we are impatient creatures driven by the concept of time, gravitating towards the idea of a fast-paced life.
Other Factors that Effect Conversion Rates
Website speed is not the only aspect of your website that has an impact on your conversion rate. Let’s that a look at other factors that have a significant effect on conversion:
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate simply means the percentage of visitors that leave the website after viewing just one page. E-commerce sites that have a high bounce rate, find it hard to convert visitors as they leave without seeing the entire product library.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO plays a vital role in increasing your website’s conversion rates. If your website ranks high on the search engines, the chances of it getting noticed by visitors increases. It is hardwired in out minds to always check out top ranking websites and purchase products from them. Therefore, SEO should not be thought of as a mere tool that only increases your visitor traffic.
User Experience
As your competitors are only one Google search away it is of vital importance that you create a website that intrigues visitors and compels them to buy your products. If your website is an eyesore, visitors are not going to give it a second of their time. Moreover, if it takes ages to load, no one is going to wait around to see how wonderful your products are.
How to Optimize Website Performance?
Using Online Testing Tools
Before you jump to making improvements, it is important that you have a baseline measurement of site performance, speed, and conversion rates. When evaluating speed and performance it is best to use two different testing tools in order to get near accurate readings.
Compress Media
When making a website one aspect that we focus on is the visual, which is a good thing as visitors find a visually appealing website more intriguing. However, most of the media files used such as infographics, videos, and product images are heavy and end up slowing the speed of the website. Therefore, it is best to use file compression tools to reduce the size of bulky media files.
Optimize Mobile Loading
Issues with site speed and performance become more noticeable on mobile devices. As we are a generation that runs on mobile phones, having a website that isn’t mobile-responsive is an issue of epic proportions. Therefore, it is of pivotal importance that you create a lightweight and mobile-responsive website.
Clean Up the Website Code
Every website uses some combination of code in order to define how it is presented to the visitors and how they can interact with it. Code bloat is a major problem affecting many websites. Redundant scripts, unnecessary plugins, and code-heavy images can have an adverse impact on website speed and performance. Therefore, it is best to clean up your code in order to boost speed and user experience.
Choose a High-Performance Website Builder
The performance and speed of your website come down to the website builder you choose. Therefore, it is important to select one that performs impeccably in Google’s Core Web Vitals and site speed and also provides good hosting.
Wix
Wix is one of the most most powerful website builder in the market. It offers all the necessary tools you need to establish an online presence. Moreover, Wix is also applauded for its user-friendly tools, SEO, analytics, and e-commerce features.