Mobile User Experience: Make Site Speed Your First Priority

How many times have you been browsing the web on your mobile device just to get stopped mid-deep-dive by a blank white screen with the loading bar stuck at 10 percent? Or worse, you’re held hostage by a partially loaded screen and the spinning wheel icon (affectionately nicknamed the ‘spinning wheel of death’). Not the greatest mobile user experience.

According to a recent article by Think with Google, the recommended mobile site load time is 5 seconds or less on mobile devices with 3G connections. But, the average mobile webpage takes a whopping 15.3 seconds to load. Let us repeat that. 15.3 seconds to load.

[headline section=”think”]”…as little as a one-second delay in load time can impact conversions by as much as 20 percent.” [/headline]

Now take a second (or 15.3) to think about what that means. If you believe that quarter of a minute doesn’t impact the conversion funnel, you’d be sadly mistaken. According to a 2017 study done by Google, “If people have a negative experience on mobile, they’re 62 percent less likely to purchase from you in the future—no matter how beautiful or data-driven your marketing campaigns are.” In another Google study, as little as a one-second delay in load time can impact conversions by as much as 20 percent. Site speed matters to the mobile user experience.

To diagnose the current state of a mobile site, Google has provided a few tools such as the Speed Scorecard. This tool will compare the speed of your mobile site against industry peers. The tool will also generate a free report with results and recommended fixes. For more tools for measuring your mobile website speed, check out this article by Think with Google.

Need help getting your site up to speed? Let us help.