{"id":3263,"date":"2021-04-12T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greece.wordcamp.org\/2021\/?p=3263"},"modified":"2021-04-13T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T11:42:16","slug":"the-growing-importance-of-site-speed-how-to-improve-it-by-nitropack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greece.wordcamp.org\/2021\/the-growing-importance-of-site-speed-how-to-improve-it-by-nitropack\/","title":{"rendered":"The Growing Importance of Site Speed (& How To Improve It) by NitroPack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amazon loses 1% of its online sales for every 100ms of latency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC risks 10% of their website\u2019s visitors for every additional second of load time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Google says that a 0.5s delay can cause a 20% drop in traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know what all of these findings have in common?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The third one<\/a> was published 15 years ago).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet most people are just now starting to wonder about the importance of site speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, speed has always been crucial for success online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in this article, you\u2019ll learn why and how you can improve your site speed today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Why Site Speed Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the quickest summary of why fast load times are vital for success online:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast website = deeper engagement = more conversions. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connection speeds are getting faster and people are more impatient than ever. Your website\u2019s speed is the first thing a lot of visitors \u201cfeel\u201d about your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If their first impression is that your website is slow, it\u2019s all downhill from there. Visitors who don\u2019t bounce immediately likely won\u2019t stick around much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Site speed also directly affects SEO. Google started using it as a ranking factor for desktop searches in 2010<\/a>. They also added it to their mobile ranking signals in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while there are more important ranking factors, there\u2019s no denying that the SEO importance of speed is growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The addition of the Core Web Vitals<\/a> is another big step in that direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most importantly, load times directly affect conversion rates. In some cases, more than any other factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tons of researches, A\/B tests and experiments have shown this effect over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the way back in 2009, Google<\/a> and Bing<\/a> reported that delays under a second<\/strong> lower the number of searches and revenue per user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s another example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the NCC Group reduced the average page load time for one of their clients by 850ms, they saw the following results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Web<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Source:<\/em> <\/em>Web Performance Case Study<\/em><\/a> by the NCC Group<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, here\u2019s what one of our customers had to say about speeding up his website with NitroPack<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe measured our conversion rates from before and after and concluded that we paid for the first year of service in increased profits within a few weeks. That doesn\u2019t even include the savings across our development team.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for the full review<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, faster websites make more money<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that we know why speed is important, let\u2019s talk about improving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Easily Improve Your Google PageSpeed Score and Reduce Load Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fixing web performance issues is difficult. It requires specialized tech knowledge and skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, you can do two simple things to reduce load times and improve your PageSpeed Score today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get a Good Hosting Plan<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people grab the cheapest hosting plan they can find and never think about it again. That\u2019s a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re not saying you should pay thousands of dollars a month for hosting. But below a certain point, you simply can\u2019t expect decent results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, there\u2019s not a best hosting company that we can just recommend. You\u2019ll have to test different plans and see what suits you best, depending on your budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a list of the best web hosting providers in 2021<\/a> to get you started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while good hosting definitely helps with site speed, it’s not enough<\/strong> in this day and age. Fast hosting only gets page structure to client devices faster. After that, the site still needs to be visualized on different devices, which is a much bigger issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why we started NitroPack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use NitroPack<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

NitroPack is a service that makes websites faster. It does that by combining everything you need for a fast website in one place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To use NitroPack on a WordPress site, you only need to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Create an account at nitropack.io<\/a><\/li>
  2. Install the NitroPack plugin in your WordPress admin panel<\/li>
  3. Connect your site to NitroPack <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All of this takes less than five minutes. After that, you get immediate access to features like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n