With more and more people connecting to some type of 4G internet connection on their mobile devices, or connecting through WiFi it is now easier than ever to browse the web quickly from mobile devices. While that is certainly a good thing, mobile users are finding that some mobile sites still aren’t loading as quickly as they should, and that is hurting the site owners. A recent study by EPiServer found that mobile pages which load quickly receive more total traffic as well as higher levels of repeat traffic.
Site load time has always been important for both SEO and general usability of sites with full versions of web pages, but many web masters don’t give it nearly as much attention for mobile sites. This may be because in the past the slow load times was blamed on the cell networks rather than the site itself. As people are getting used to having high speed internet on their mobile phones and tablets they are becoming less and less accepting of the slower loading mobile versions of websites.
About 47% of those who were surveyed say that they read news content on mobile versions of websites. Four in ten of them said that the load times of the sites is the most important aspect of their overall experience. Nearly half of them said that the sites were slower than they would like.
When it comes to full versions of sites being loaded on a PC the rule of thumb is that if a site doesn’t load within about three seconds, visitors will begin to abandon the site and browse to another. This is, of course, in addition to any negative impact the site will receive from the search engines who also take loading time into account. For mobile sites the same general rule is beginning to apply, at least for those connecting with WiFi or high end 4G enabled devices.
If mobile website owners don’t start putting the focus on the speed at which their page loads, they will almost certainly begin to see the bounce rate go up and their total traffic go down. Regardless of what other features a site has to offer, if people have to wait long periods of time to have them load, they will find somewhere else to get the information they need.
Have you been working to keep your mobile sites running quickly? What have you found to be most effective for decreasing load times on mobile devices? The full survey can be found HERE.
