Doesn't it annoy you when some websites or blogs are painfully slow to load? It does me, so much so that often I don't bother to wait and move on to something else.Most of us have a broadband connection but just think how slow some sites must be on dial up.
I read somewhere that in the US slightly over 10% still use a dial up connection for the Internet.
"So what?" you might say. But if our blogs are slow to load doesn't it follow that this could be costing a money making blog - well money.
I'm no tech expert so I won't go into the ins and outs of how to speed up loading times. What I have noticed myself though is that some widgets and photos slow things considerably. Maybe a couple less widgets and optimizing images could speed things up.
It's something we should no doubt look at because those dial up people - every one in ten hits - otherwise are going to move on without clicking on our ads or promotions. Also a lot of broadband visitors will also take umbrage as they expect things to pop up pretty quickly.
Slow loading may cost us potential money, but I read recently that there could also be more to it than this.
I've no idea if it's 100% true but I've heard that Google have loading times included within their search engine algorithm. If this is right then a blog could be penalised if it loads at a snails pace.
Two reasons therefore to try and keep loading times at a reasonable level.
(1) It'll cost possible sales or clicks if visitors get fed up waiting.
(2) It'll damage search engine rankings (allegedly).
It's something I'm going to look at on my own blogs.
There are several free website speed checkers about such as the one at Self SEO. They write about slow loaders:
"It is estimated that if a page doesn't load within 5-8 seconds you will lose 1/3 of your visitors."I think it's worth thinking about. If our aim is to make money, then every improvement we make must help.
Good luck,
Mike.
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