Search Engine Optimization: Free Tools to Determine Page Load Speed

Remember the days when we all utilized dial up Internet? Maybe you were lucky and had a powerful modem that got you more than 9600 baud rate. With today’s technology we can surf the Internet at blazing speeds. When you are a business person or website owner that is looking to make sales, offer products or show off your service’s speed is very important.

It has been widely reported that Google likes websites that load quickly. So do website visitors.

If you are interested in a product or service and click on a link, you want to see it right away. IF there is a delay, often people will click their back button a click another site link. If your site is the delayed site, you are losing potential customers and in the end it is costing you money.

There have been studies that show Internet surfers that have to wait longer than 10-15 seconds will become frustrated and leave the page and seek other options. So as a business person, how are you to know if people are leaving your site based on delays? Well your in luck as there are a number of ways to analyze your page load speeds.

Studies show that over 15 percent of people will leave a site if they have to wait over 10 minutes. This is an important factor one that Google now includes when considering a sites page rank. Site load times can be managed and improved rather easily. Some things web creators and owners may want to consider to increase load time include: limiting large and numerous imagery. The visuals of your website is important, however if people are leaving based on load time your site is useless. Crop your images and consider using thumb nails. In line with the visualization aspect, many sites use flash options for promoting their product or service. These can hinder your load speed, and should be avoided if possible. Lastly you have option to use one of many web page load tools. Google, Firefox and other popular sites for example offer a webmaster tool options. These tools will focus on your website and evaluate the areas that are slowing your page load down. You can then work on minimizing some of these delays.

In conclusion, if people are having to wait for your site to load the chances are you are losing business. Managing your site load time is rather easy, and fixing the problems may be a bit more difficult but in the end you will improve your visitors over all experience. Once you have browsers on your landing page, you can add the large images or flash and java aps in the background on a click to view basis. Users are more likely to wait once they have accessed your page and see what you have to offer.