The importance of website speed cannot be overstated, especially in today's speed driven world. Website is “expected” by your visitors, and if you have a slow loading website or they cannot access media on your website quick enough, people will leave.

In fact, 40% of people will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That is right, you only have 3 SECONDS!

Tasks for this Lesson:

• Analyzing factors that influence website speed
• Turn Your SiteSpeed to ON at Wealthy Affiliate
• Understanding Page Speed Insights
• How to Avoid the Rabbit Hole of TOO MUCH Focus on Speed
• Create ONE new article from your Hubs & Publish It

So it is critical that you put some focus into your website speeds, and I am going to help guide you through this topic.

First, let’s look at the importance of speed and the impacts that it can have on your business:

• User Experience: Website speed is a key factor in user experience. Slow-loading pages are a big frustration for users and can lead to high bounce rates…in other words, people leaving your website. A smooth, fast-loading website creates a positive experience, encouraging visitors to stay longer and engage more.
  
• Search Engine Ranking: Google and other search engines consider site speed as a ranking factor, also known as your “core web vitals”. Faster websites are likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), leading to more traffic. This is becoming more important for mobile search, as mobile devices often have slower internet connection and less onboard processing power.
  

• Conversion Rates: Site speed also impacts conversion rates. For e-commerce, lead generation, and affiliate sites, a delay of even a second in page response can significantly decrease conversions. Fast-loading sites help maintain user interest, leading to better engagement and higher chances of users completing a purchase or filling out a contact form.
  
• Mobile Experience: With the increasing use of mobile devices these days, mobile site speed becomes even more crucial. Mobile users often deal with varying internet speeds and less powerful hardware, making optimized, fast-loading mobile sites essential for good user experience.
  
• Brand Perception: Website speed can affect how users perceive your brand. A fast, efficient site conveys professionalism and a high regard for user experience, whereas a slow site can give an impression of a lack of care and professionalism.

Website speed is vital for providing a good user experience, improving search engine rankings, enhancing conversion rates, optimizing mobile user experience, and maintaining a positive brand perception.

As you gain expertise within the SEO and online business worlds, optimizing website speed should be a top priority to ensure the best possible outcomes in user engagement, rankings, and results.

The Main Culprits of Speed Issues on Your Website

Now that you understand the benefits of website speed, it's time to have a look at some of the biggest culprits that lead to slow loading websites, and diminishing speeds.

There are FOUR key factors that contribute significantly to the speed performance of your website. Understanding these, will give you immediate ideas as to “fixes” when you do run into speed issues…which will almost certainly happen at some point in your journey moving forward.

Culprit #1: Low Quality Website Hosting. Consider this the foundation of your speed. If you have slow hosting, your website is going to suffer. You are in good hands here with Wealthy Affiliate as all of your websites hosted here are high speed, and loaded on our state-of-the-art Managed Wordpress Hosting platform. Every website is gets 99/100 minimum PageSpeed Scores out of the box! You can test your pagespeed scores here.

Culprit #2: High Resolution Images (or TOO MANY Images). A picture speaks a thousand words, but big images can slow down your website. The solution isn't eliminating images, but making them web-friendly and compressing them. Also if you overuse images, your website will naturally load a bit slower, so make your images count and use them when you are helping paint a picture or tell a story to your audience.

All images that you publish through SiteContent are compressed using Kraken.io, the world’s top compression technology. You will notice the Kraken.io plugin within the back office of your website, as this is automatically pre-installed and set-up with your Premium/Premium Plus+ membeship.

Culprit #3: Scripts and plugins. While Wordpress Plugins can add functionality, an overdose can slow our website to a crawl. If you have more than 10 plugins, they are almost certainly going to start slowing down your website…and a single poorly programmed plug-in can grind your website to a halt. As a rule of thumb, if the plugin doesn’t really offer value to your business and save you a lot of time (ie, have a tangible time/efficiency benefit), then don’t add it.

Culprit #4: Web design and framework. A sleek, lightweight design could mean the difference between snappy load times and a sluggish website. Your website might look “cool” with that intricate theme, but remember - lean and clean always will win. Plus, a simple theme will tend to convert better because the focus becomes the content.

If you ever run into slow website speeds, or you are seeing a slow down in the PageSpeed Insights of your website, you will want to look at these four main culprits, as it is almost going to be certainly one of those.

You also have access to SiteSpeed, an internal "speed optimization" platform you have access to exclusively here within Wealthy Affiliate. You can find this within your SiteManager, under your "Details" associated with your website.

And then upon visiting your Details section, you will be able to turn on your SiteSpeed. Toggle it on if it isn't already.

This will cache your website content so it loads much quicker for your website visitors.

Improving your website's speed is crucial. Understanding the impact of speed is straightforward yet significant: it affects the user experience, shapes how users perceive your brand, and influences your position in the digital landscape. Delivering your website content quickly goes beyond mere user satisfaction; it establishes trust, shows professionalism, and demonstrates that you respect your visitors' time.

Tasks for this Lesson:

• Analyzing factors that influence website speed
• Turn Your SiteSpeed to ON at Wealthy Affiliate
• Understanding Page Speed Insights
• How to Avoid the Rabbit Hole of TOO MUCH Focus on Speed
• Create ONE new article from your Hubs & Publish It