Mobile Site Speed Matters. Are you up to speed?

Consumers and search engines have a certain level of expectation for mobile site speed and performance. If your site has problems that go unchecked, it can have a big impact. We have all visited a mobile site that has taken too long to load, got impatient, and left.

According to Akamai’s recent Consumer Web Performance Expectations survey, nearly half of all consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less; and according to DoubleClick by Google, despite major advancements in network speeds, most mobile sites don’t measure up. Google data also shows that the average load time for auto sites in the U.S. is 9 seconds; things like third party scripts, images and videos can increase your site’s load time. And don’t get us wrong, it would be silly to remove important things like Chat, vehicle walkarounds, and high quality images just to shave off a second of load time – I would rather wait an extra second and have a better user experience – but if your site is taking longer than the average 9 seconds, you may need to fix some things.

Web pages and customer expectations are evolving, which means it is increasingly important to do occasional website audits. Audits also empower you to manage and continually optimize the user experience. Audits should include finding page errors, checking site speed, looking for faulty links and incorrect page redirects.

How can you improve your mobile speed?

• Look for ways to optimize your websites content for mobile devices. File sizes can substantially influence loading times.
• Try and make sure the site elements load in the most efficient order possible, and be sure that the first things people see on the site are ready quickly. Make sure to keep monitoring your site’s mobile speed to continually improve your users mobile experience.
• Try targeting fewer server requests to optimize load time. If you can ensure only the necessary requests are going through to your mobile site then you are going to create a much smoother and more pleasant mobile experience for your audience.

Start taking steps to improve your sites mobile speed, it does require some daily effort, but is worth the extra attention!