Originally Published in 2019. Updated in 2021.

Page speed is a factor in your SEO ranking. Slow speeds could be keeping your business away from valuable customers who are searching for your products or services! There’s something you can do about it, though.

Mary Ellen Coe is the president of Google Customer Solutions. She’s trying to call business owners’ attention to an area of mobile marketing that gets far too little attention: page speed.

“If a page on your site fails to load within 3 seconds, customers will abandon it.”

We all know that page speed is important. Page speed is important because people are impatient. An entire generation of shoppers have grown up with high speed internet as the norm; they are continually connected. Their expectation of website performance is high. If a page fails to load within 3 seconds, they’re going to abandon it.

This expectation does not go away when people are searching the web on their phone. According to Coe, the mobile web is the most widely used platform in the world. It’s where people go to search, browse, and shop. Simply having a mobile presence isn’t enough. The mobile experience must be every bit as good – or better – than what a customer will experience when accessing your site via a computer.

The Need for Speed is Real

In April of 2017, SOASTA, a company that provides cloud-based website testing tools, released the State of Online Retail Performance Report. Among the important highlights:

Mobile accounts for a slight majority of all website visits, but only accounts for 21.87% of visits that end in conversion. What accounts for this disconnect? There are several factors, including the fact that page load times on desktop computers are less than 2 seconds, while on mobile devices, they’re closer to 3.

In other words, a one-second delay in mobile load times can impact conversions by as much as 20%.

Not only does your tech need to be fast, but your efforts to adapt to better technology need to be swift too. In the Reimagining Retail Commerce in a Post COVID World, Commerce Tools reinforces the even-more critical role speed plays in the customer experience in 2021: 

Speed has been key to attracting and retaining customers since Amazon launched one-click payment. It’s been all about how fast you can provide information, process transactions, and deliver products, as well as adapt to new technology and trends.

Do You Know What Your Mobile Page Load Speed Is?

Part of the reason Google is spending so much time and energy talking about mobile page load speeds right now is the fact that they have a speed testing tool of their own. You can test out the site speed test tool for yourself. When you enter your site, Google will tell you how it performed on a 4G device. Additionally, it will issue recommendations to help you improve your speed, which can range from things like text and image compression to addressing inefficient code.

If you need help deciphering your mobile site speed report, or assistance in implementing their suggestions for improvement, just let us know. We’re here to help.