Does Website Performance Really Matter?

In the era of information technology, the first place people look to for information is the internet. When an individual types his or her search query into a search engine and is directed to your website, that individual is there for a reason. The website visitor may be looking to learn information about a particular topic, or he or she may want to know more about your about the services your business offer. Website visitors are fickle, they want to visit the site, learn what they need to learn, and then keep moving along. It doesn’t matter if your website is for a blog, local business, or an online store; website performance matters. It takes only seconds to lose a visitor’s attention, and possibly lose them forever.

As a web publisher, you need to be on top of this information, and continually monitor the speed and performance metrics of your site for fluctuations. If your site is running slow, then you’ll know and you can go ahead and make the necessary adjustments to bring it back to normal. There are a number of free and commercial monitoring services that you can use in order to accomplish this.

Always remember that website visitors are impatient; they want to visit your site, get what they need and leave the site. If your website is too slow, then visitors will get frustrated and leave. The speed of your website is important not only for your visitors but for you as well. If your website takes too long to load, then you miss out as a web publisher because visitors will not get acquainted with your website content. In addition, advertisers may not want to work with you if your website runs slowly, which can cause you to lose out on a potentially substantial amount of ad revenue.

Improving the speed and performance of your website does take work, but it is manageable. There are many ways you can boost the performance of your website such as using different domains for alternative types of content, firewall protection, cloud servers, multiple web servers, and many other techniques to increase speed. One of the first things that you should do when you’re setting out to improve your site’s speed, is get a baseline by running a website speed test. This will help give you an idea about where you’re starting from, and some of the problem areas that you need to improve on your site. Again, tracking the performance metrics of your site is really the first step you need to take to increase its efficiency. As long as you’re proactive about monitoring your website metrics, and take steps to ensure your overall server and website health, you should be in good shape when it comes to performance.