Why Website Speed is Important to Your Business

If you don't remember the days before high speed Internet consider yourself lucky. The speed that we all take for granted today seemed like a distant dream back then, instead there was a lot more banging your head against the keyboard waiting for information to load.

Back in the days before the internet really ramped up in speed, website performance was much different than what you are used to today. All the interactive video and graphics that are commonplace when you visit any number of websites today did not exist. Back then blinking text was the hottest thing around, if you really wanted to get flashy with your website maybe you would add some scrolling text.

Imagine if all of the sudden your modern website was subjected to yesterdays crawling speeds. Do you think that the visitors will even bother sticking around while your header graphics load? This may surprise you but when a lot of visitors come to your website, they may be having just such an experience.

The reason why this is, in short, is that your website speed is dependent on how far away a person is from your server. You may be saying "My website loads fine when I check it from my computer", but you need to consider that potential customers that visit your site may be doing so from thousands of miles away. It's a fact that the further data has to travel the longer it takes, that is why it is crucial to focus on speed optimization.

Even if you haven't thought of it before this does not mean that speed optimization is any less valid. It's no secret that the average attention span today is short, and getting shorter. Just how much time does a person have to wait for your website speed to pick up?

Today's Internet users have come to expect instant gratification, whether it's thinking of a song and downloading it within seconds, or seeking out information like a heat guided missile, they want it fast. When this happens will your website be ready?

Fortunately there are ways to prevent slow website speed and really focus on speed optimization. This is will ensure that every visitor to your site gets the fastest possible experience. This is as crucial as it gets, if a potential customer in the real world was trying to go into your store, but your doors took a few minutes to open, how long do you think it would take them to go to the competitor across the street?

You know it, I know it - people just won't wait and they certainly won't come back to try again. If the front door of your business obstructed the entry of your customers you would do something about it, after all you would be losing business and lost business means lost revenue. It's the same online, although it's far less obvious simply because the website is loading fast for you and you think it's the same for everyone else - well it's definitely not and you could be losing thousands, even millions of dollars each year in lost business...and not even know it.