For any given industry, there are thousands of related websites. A decade ago, businesses needed only to create and advertise a website to see a direct impact on revenue. Now, with the ease of website creation and the increasingly technology-reliant consumer base, businesses are required to have websites that stand out, are user-friendly, and are optimized for conversions. High bandwidth hosting and page speed are two crucial aspects to managing a website that outperforms the competition and produces direct and noticeable increases in revenue.
Understanding The Importance Of Page Speed And Page Load Speed
Page speed simply refers the amount of time it takes for a website or media file to download from a hosting service and display on the appropriate web browser page. Page load speed refers to the time it takes for the entire content of the link to be displayed on a web browser page after a link is clicked. While both are fairly simple concepts, they both have profound impacts on the user experience and profitability of the website.
Why are page speed and page load speed important to a business’s website? The answer lies in the algorithms used by search engines for ranking. Each search engine utilizes a highly specific algorithm to determine page rank. One of the top factors in this algorithm is page load speed. Web site pages that are slow to load simply will not rank high in search engine results. Studies have shown that one in four visitors will abandon a website if it does not load within four seconds. Furthermore, 46% of users will not return to sites that have poor page load speed. This means that businesses with slow loading pages are turning away almost 50% of potential customers.
Understanding The Importance Of High Bandwidth Hosting
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred or downloaded from a website. The speed of the networks, connections, and applications running on a hosting center’s server increases in direct proportion to the amount of bandwidth being utilized. Determining the amount of bandwidth a website needs (and will need over the years) is based on the following three factors.
- Layout. The complexity of a website’s layout determines the amount of bandwidth needed for optimal website performance.
- Traffic Flow. Websites with higher levels of traffic will require a higher amount of bandwidth for optimal website performance. On the flip side, websites with higher bandwidth are capable of hosting more visitors and, therefore, tend to see more traffic to their site.
- Growth plans. What are the growth plans of a company? Companies looking to expand within the next couple of years are advised to opt for higher bandwidth packages to accommodate further growth spurts without incurring additional costs or suffering downtime.