Computers are getting quicker and internet speeds faster. We no longer have to take every single ‘bit’ into consideration, but we still have to be conscious of unnecessarily bloated dental websites.

Here are three reasons you need to speed up your website:

1.Your patients hate waiting, especially when it comes to the internet.

If your website takes 1-3 seconds to load the “bounce rate” probability is 32%, which is considered to be low, but if your website takes 1-5 seconds to load then this probability skyrockets to 90%.

A bounce represents an occasion where a user has visited a website and then left after only viewing one page. The bounce rate is measured in a percentage. It represents the number of occasions a user has visited your site and then left after just viewing one page, regardless of how long they stayed on that page. (Total bounces divided by total visits)
It can be difficult to determine why someone has left your website after only viewing one page. It could be down to poor audience targeting, uninteresting content, not enough multimedia or maybe they’ve found the answer they need on the first page they’ve found. However, if you can get the page speed right you could at least remove that from the list of potentially contributing factors.

2. You’re eating your patient’s data.

Data usage is a huge concern for people using mobile phones on limited data contracts. The main reason a website is slow is because there is too much to download. They aren’t going to be happy if your site is literally costing them money. This has become even more important since more people in the UK now access the internet on mobile phones rather than desktop computers as of October 2019.

3. Google will penalise you for being slow

Website speed affects your search engine ranking. In 2010, Google announced that website speed would be factored into their search engine algorithms for desktop computer searches and as of 2018, website speeds will be a ranking factor for mobile phone searches too. These algorithms take several factors into consideration such as page speed, security and accessibility and use these to determine how high your site appears on search result pages. The higher your site is, the more traffic you’ll get.

Get in touch for a free digital audit, we’ll test your site to see how it performs and suggest ways you can improve your digital presence.