Imagine visiting a site where every page took several seconds to load.

Frustrating, isn’t it?

The truth is, many bloggers neglect their website’s loading speed as they load up on fancy visual elements — from image carousels to interactive widgets.

That’s not the way to impress your audience.

What they need is a blog that loads fast, maximizes readability, and delivers the information they want pronto.

Why is Page Loading Speed Important
In addition to improved user experience, a fast loading speed also has numerous benefits from a marketing standpoint.

Must See: 10 effective ways to speed optimization on Blogger

Retain More Traffic
Statistics show that around 40 percent of users would leave a site that fails to load in three seconds or less. This figure jumps to 53 percent if we’re talking about mobile users.

user abandonment rate in 3 seconds
And you wonder why your blog has such an abysmal bounce rate.

If you keep on ignoring your blog’s loading speed, you’re basically cutting your traffic potential in about half.

Increase Conversions
Did you know that a one-second delay in load times causes a 7 percent dip in conversions?

To put things into perspective, that’s a loss of $7 each time you secure conversions worth $100.

effect of 1 second delay
It may not seem huge, but remember that your competitors’ websites are only a few clicks away.

Once readers move on to a different blog with better user experience, they may never look back.

Higher Search Engine Rankings
In case you didn’t know, search engines like Google are very particular when it comes to user experience.

That’s why they look at loading speed as an important ranking factor not just for desktop, but also for mobile websites.

speed and seo
If you’re unfamiliar with the term SEO or Search Engine Optimization, I suggest you start learning using this post.

For now, allow me to show you the next step to achieving top-notch blog performance: measuring the actual loading speed of your blog.

How to Test Website Loading Speed
You may think your website already runs fast enough, but only a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can prove it.

Put simply, it is a performance optimization tool that analyzes the speed of your website, detects issues that affect speed, and provides a list of suggestions along with helpful resources.

To use PageSpeed Insights, go ahead and enter your blog’s URL and click ‘Analyze.’

pagespeed insights
Just give PageSpeed Insights a few seconds to work its magic.

When done, the first thing you’ll find is an in-depth assessment of your website’s performance, including your speed score, factors that affect loading speed, and estimated latency or the delay before user inputs can be registered.

pagespeed insights results
You can also use PageSpeed Insights for mobile performance by switching to the ‘Mobile’ tab. The tool should immediately present you with a different report that reflects your blog’s performance on smartphones and tablets.

pagespeed insights for mobile
Found your speed scores yet?

From here on out, I advise you to use them as your primary means of measuring your website’s performance.

Your goal is simple: to perform as many optimizations as needed to reach the “fast” end of the speed score scale.

Let me show you what I’m talking about.

speed score scale
You may read somewhere that a speed score of at least 85 is good enough, which is actually quite true given that even big sites like Facebook have scores of less than 90.

Facebook speed score
But as a budding brand trying to make a dent in your niche, settling for “good enough” is never an option.

You should always embrace opportunities that will help you get ahead of the competition.

Improving the user experience on your website by bumping up your loading speed is one of these opportunities.

Ready to take the next step? Then let’s get to it.