We are NOT a patient society. That means if you delay someone from using your website, then they probably will give up and go somewhere else. If they do stick around on a slow loading website, then you only have a few seconds to get their attention.

Kissmetrics did a case study and determined that even a one-second delay in loading speed could result in an annual loss of $2.5 million. The conversion rate drops that much.

Over at Torquemag.io, Janna Hilferty shared some thoughts on the patience level of readers. Her article, 13 Performance-boosting Site Speed Tips for WordPress, shares some thoughts on how to speed up your site so that you can keep the readers hanging around.

The one thing that jumped out at me is the need to cache the pages. I am far from the most technical WordPress user (I fall under the content creator and code BREAKER column), the idea that something as simple as a caching system could speed up my website caught me off guard.

Nathan Ingram, one of the WPYall WordCamp Birmingham organizers, shared more tips in a webinar, Optimizing Images for Your WordPress Website, focused on not only creating great images but great images that load fast.

If you do nothing else to speed up your WordPress sites, making sure that you set up caching (which can be done through plugins like W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, and WP Super Cache). You can also use Smush, Imagify, or TinyPNG to keep your images under control.

The Takeaway

SPEED MATTERS, Y’ALL!

What really caught me off guard is that a one-second slowdown would make as much of a difference as it does. Keeping your readers on your website can LITERALLY be the difference in seconds (or even less).

What are your top tips for keeping your website loading fast?