Aim for a Load Time of Less than Two Seconds

Two seconds. It’s the most time someone will spend waiting for your site to load. A new survey by one of the leading content delivery services, Akamai, indicate that 47 percent of consumers expect e-commerce (and any site for that matter) to load in two seconds or less. Another 40 percent will wait no more than three seconds, with even less willing to wait for higher load times.

Even though this study was conduced for e-commerce sites, it should (and does) apply to blogs. No matter how small or large your site, visitors expect to be able to access content, then get on their way. They shouldn’t have to wait more than ten seconds for a blog post to load, and this appears to be even longer when there is no response from the server initially.

Nearly 79 percent of online shoppers, including your own readers, will have a dissatisfying visit and nearly a third (27 percent) of visitors will never return to your site to purchase or read your content. These two figures alone should convince you to speed up your site and optimize the content. Brand loyalty and overall view quickly decrease, leaving your blog at a much lower position compared to blogs optimized for the modern web.

Another important area the study addressed was distraction. If someone is forced to wait for content to load on your site, they’ll just as quickly open a new tab, close your site’s tab/window, and browse to another site that offers the same content. You’ll lose the traffic and any ad revenue or affiliate profit from these visitors. In the overall scheme of things, this might not appear to matter, but multiply that one person by 27-79 percent, and you’ll quickly lose the needed sales to remain in operation and continue generating the good profits.

Via Pingdom.